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TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



*^ 



i868 



1893 



PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE OPENING OF 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY 




ITHACA, N. Y. 

PUBLISHED BY THB UNIVERSITY 

1893 



Copyright 



6 S'Ot 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY .' 5 

The Programme 8 

THE REUNION n 

THE ADDRESSES 15 

President Schurman's Address 17 

Mr. Depew's Oration 18 

Mr. Woodford's Address 43, 

Chancellor Upson's Address 44 

Professor Caldwell's Address 55 

Mr. Hendrix's Address 64 

Dr. Smith's Presentation 69 

Professor Wilder's Response 75 

Professor Huffcut's Presentation 77 

THE DINNER 79 

Ex-President White's Telegram \ 81 

General Read's I<etter 82 

Professor Goldwin Smith's Letter 83 

The Toasts 86 

THE SERMON 89 

Bishop Doane's Sermon 91 

The Service at Barnes Hall 117 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

VIEWS OF CORNEI,!. UNIVERSITY IN ITS 

FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY 119 

Cornell University in 1868. 
' The Original Facult3\ 
' The University from the Valley. 
The Entrance to the Campus. 
South University Building (Morrill Hall). 
Cornell University in 1872. 
The Campus, looking north. 
Cornell University in 1S78. 
The Campus, looking north. 
The Campus, looking southwest. 
Cornell University in 1887. 
The Campus, looking north. 
Cornell University in 1893. 
The Campus, looking north. 
The Campus, looking south. 
-. Sage College. 
^ Barnes Hall. 
The Armory (the G5minasium). 
The University Library. 



INTRODUCTORY 



INTRODUCTORY. 



In obedience to the provisions of its charter, Cornell 
Universitj' opened its doors to students on Wednesda3', October 
the seventh, 1868. 



On June 15th, 1892, the Board of Trustees of the Univer- 
sity, at their annual meeting in Commencement Week, adopt- 
ed the following resolution : 

Resolved^ That a committee, consisting of the 
President of the University, the Chairman of this 
Board, and three members to be named by the Chair- 
man, be constituted for the purpose of arranging for 
the appropriate observation of the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of the organization of Cornell University, 
with full authority to invite guests in the name of 
the Board, and to provide all necessary arrangements 
for the proper commemoration of the event ; and the 
Executive Committee is hereby authorized to make 
special appropriation to defray such expenses as may 
be determined upon by said special committee. 

The committee thus created was completed by the nomin- 
ation of the Hon. Alonzo B. Cornell, the Hon. Andrew Dick- 
son White, UU.D., U-H.D., and Daniel Elmer Salmon, 
D.V.M., to serve as its members with President Jacob Gould 
Schurman, D.Sc, lyU.D., and the Hon. Henrj^ Williams Sage, 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

Chairman of the Board of Trustees. At the following annual 
meeting, June 14th, 1893, Robert Henrj- Treman, B.M.E., 
was appointed to the place on the committee left vacant by the 
expiration of Dr. Salmon's trusteeship. 

In pursuance of the action of the Trustees, there were 
sent out in August and September, 1893, to some four thou- 
sand friends of the Universit}' the following invitation : 

The Trustees and Faculty of Cornell Univer- 
sity request tlie honor of your presence at Ithaca, 
New York, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunda}'^, Octo- 
ber sixth, seventh, and eighth, eighteen hundred and 
ninety-three, for the Public Exercises in Celebration 
of the Twenty-fifth Anniversar}^ of the Opening of 
the University. 

The programme of exercises arranged for the celebration 
ran as follows : 

186S 

PROGRAMME 

OF THE 

QUARTER-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 

OF THE OPENING OP 

CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

FRIDAY, SATURDAY, AND SUNDAY 

October 6th, 7TH, and 8th 
1893 



introductory. 9 

Friday, October 6th 

8-1 1 p. M. General Reception and Reunion in the University 
Library , 



Saturday, October jtk 

The day will be opened with a Salute of twenty-five guns 
at 8 A. M., and the Chimes will be played from 9 to 10 
A. M. The Literary Exercises will be held in the Leefture 
Room of the Library, beginning at 10 A. m., with the fol- 
lowing programme : 

Music 

Prayer, The Rev. W. D. Wilson, D.D., LL.D. 

Oration, Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, LL-D. 

Music 
Address, Hon. Stewart L- Woodford, LL.D. 

Address, The Rev. Anson J. Upson, D.D., LL.D. 

Chancellor of the University of the State of New York. 

Address, The Rev. E. N. Potter, S.T.D., LL.D. 

President of Hobart College. 

Music 
Address, Professor G. C. Caldwell, B.S., Ph.D. 

Address, Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix 

Presentation of Commemoratory Volumes : 

I. To Professor Burt G. Wilder, B.S., M.D., on be- 
half of his former Students, by Dr. Theobald 
Smith, Ph.B., '81, with reply by Professor 
Wilder 



lO INTRODUCTORY. 

2. To the University, by 

Professor Ernest W. Huffcut, B.S., LL.B. 
Benediaion, The Rev. S. H. Synnott 

Music 
Immediately after the exercises the invited guests, alumni, and 
officers of government, administration, and instruction 
in the University will proceed to the Gymnasium, where 
dinner will 'be served. 



Sunday, October 8th 

II A. M. Sermon, 
Rt. Reverend W. C. Doane, D.D. Oxon., L,L,.D. Cantab. 
This service will be held in the Armory. 



7:30 Commemoratorj' Service of the Cornell University 
Christian Association in Barnes Hall : 
Doxology, By the Congregation 

Scripture Reading and Prayer, 

The Rev. Charles M. Tyler, A.M., D.D. 
Music 
What the Association has done at Cornell, 

Professor Geo. L. Burr, A.B. 
What our Aim should be, James P. Hall, '94 

Music 
What a Christian Association can do for a University, 

John R. Mott, '88, Ph.B. 
The Association in the Church, 

Professor B. I. Wheeler, A.B., Ph.D. 
Benediction 



THE REUNION 



THE REUNION. 



On the evening of Friday, October the sixth, there gath- 
ered at the reunion in the University Librar3^ together with 
members of the University and many citizens of Ithaca, a large 
number of guests from all parts of the country — old students 
and alumni, early friends of the University, and eminent repre- 
sentatives of sister institutions. They were received by Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Schurman, by the Hon. Henrj- W. Sage, Chair- 
man of the Board of Trustees, and by Mrs. Dean Sage, of 
Albany. 

Nearly all the rooms of the Library were thrown open to 
the guests, and there were exposed for their inspection the 
various official publications of the University and the most 
notable recent accessions to its shelves— specimen volumes 
from the Zarncke librarj-, lately bought and presented to the 
University by Mr. William H. Sage, from the Dante collection 
now being gathered for it as the gift of Professor Willard Fiske, 
and, in the President White Eibrarj-, a body of handsomely 
illustrated Russian works, sent for this anniversary, in token 
of his continued interest, by Ex-President White. There was 
also on exhibition, in the President White Eibrar}-, the newly- 
completed portrait of Ezra Cornell, by Mr. J. Colin Forbes, 
ordered by the Legislature of the State of New York for the 
State Library at Albany. 



THE ADDRESSES 



THE ADDRESSES. 



Saturday morning dawned fair and bright, a perfect Octo- 
ber day, like that which it commemorated. Ushered in by the 
artillery salute at eight and the chimes from nine till ten, the 
literary exercises, in the great hall of the Univer,sity Library, 
were opened by prayer, offered by the first Registrar of the 
University, the Rev. William Dexter Wilson, D.D., I^L-D., 
Iv.H.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. 

President Schurman then addressed the audience as 
follows : 
Honored Guests^ Ahiimti^ and Friends : 

In tlie name of tlie University I bid you all a 
cordial welcome ! We have invited you to join with 
us in celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 
opening of the University. When that event took 
place, there was a complaint that nothing was fin- 
ished. Replying to this criticism, the founder of the 
University in his short but pregnant and memorable 
speech expressed his own view and the view of the 
Trustees regarding the future of the University in 
words which I will now take the liberty of reading to 
you. " I hope," said he, "we have laid the foundation 
of an institution which shall combine practical with 
liberal education, which shall fit the youth of our 
country for the professions, the farms, the mines, the 



l8 THE ADDRESSES. 

manufactures, for the investigations of science and 
for mastering all the practical questions of life with 
success and honor." That was our founder's idea 
of the new university. And in the presence of this 
distinguished assembly, adorned with the presence 
of so many representatives of other seats of learning 
in the East and in the West, in the North and in the 
South, I venture to say that Ezra Cornell's is the 
final and absolute conception of the mission of a 
university. With due modesty I confess we are far 
from having attained unto the realization of our 
founder's ideal. Something, however, has been 
done ; though there is much still to do. Between 
this task which beckons us on and that achievement 
which is behind we stand to-day. It will, I am sure, 
at once deepen our respect for the past and inspire 
us with faith and hope for the future, if on this occa- 
sion we consider, under the guidance of the eloquent 
gentleman who will now address us, what has been 
accomplished by Cornell University in the short 
span of twenty-five years. And so it gives me pleas- 
ure, as I also esteem it an honor, to present the orator 
of the day, the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, LL.D. 

MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

This is an American anniversary. It celebrates a 
life which is representative of American conditions 
and opportunities, and a university founded to meet 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 19 

the practical necessities of American youth. Cornell 
was the first of the great colleges to cultivate a field 
outside the lessons and traditions of the mediaeval 
schoolmen. The most exquisite of pleasures is con- 
tact with the perennial youth of our alma mater. 
Parties dissolve, friends grow cold, loved ones depart, 
and age becomes a solitude, but a day with the col- 
lege revives the enthusiasms and ambitions of the 
past and puts us in touch with the hopes and aspira- 
tions of the present. Patriotic or commemorative 
celebrations are ephemeral. The centuries and their 
divisions which mark the recurring natal days of 
these great and ever growing centers of learning are 
eternal. We admire or reverence past events, as we 
do statues or monuments, only when we are in their 
presence. The fresh and stimulating influences of 
college life are ever with us. Ideas are companions ; 
facts are mile-stones. Head and heart are united in 
the sentiments and emotions of this day. 

The life of Ezra Cornell is a lesson and an in- 
spiration. The study of his struggles and success 
is a liberal education. Our meeting would lose 
much of its significance if it failed to enforce the les- 
son of the career and commemorate the character of 
the founder. Sixty-five years ago young Cornell, 
who had just attained his majority and started out to 
seek his fortune, after a walk of forty miles rested 
upon one of the hills overlooking this beautiful lake. 
This reticent Quaker was passionately fond of na- 
ture, and he was entranced by the superb panorama 



20 THE ADDRESSES. 

spread out before liim. Few places on eartt possess 
so man}^ scenic attractions. The only view I know 
wliicli compares with this is the view from the Acrop- 
olis at Athens, with the plain in front, the Pentelic 
mountains behind, and the blue ^5i^gean in the 
distance. 

The young mechanic had neither friends nor ac- 
quaintances in the village which nestled at his feet, 
and his worldh^ possessions were all in a little bundle 
on the end of the stick which served for staff and 
baggage-wagon. He had no money and only a spare 
suit of clothes, but with health, good habits, ambi- 
tion, industry, and a perfect knowledge of what he 
intended to do, and an equal determination to do it, 
he entered Ithaca a conqueror. No delegation of 
citizens met him at the gates, no triumphal proces- 
sion bore him in a chariot, no arches spanned the 
streets, but the man who was to make this then 
secluded hamlet known throughout the world had 
done for Ithaca the greatest service it could receive 
b}' deciding to become its citizen. Though poor, he 
was far removed from povertj^. His situation illus- 
trates one of the hopeful features of American con- 
ditions. Neither doubt nor despair was in his mind. 
He had found his place and knew he could improve 
it. He saw his ladder and began to climb it. It is the 
genius of our people to get on, and it is the pleasure 
of the community to help and applaud. Occasional 
failures test the metal of the aspirant, and hard 
knocks develop grit or gelatin. There are, unhappi- 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 21 

ly, suffering and helplessness incident to tlie prac- 
tical workings of the doctrine of the survival of the 
fittest, but vigor and manhood win their rewards. 

Faith and works were the principles of Ezra Cor- 
nell and the carpenter's bench a platform and pre- 
paration for larger efforts. Adaptability and concen- 
tration of effort have developed the resources of the 
countr3^ They have opened mines in the mountains 
and transformed the prairies from wild wastes to 
fields rich with golden grain and dotted with happy 
homes. They have suggested the inventions to meet 
the necessities of the hour. The}^ are American 
characteristics. The}' belong only to a people who 
are not trained in grooves and are not taught to plant 
their feet only in the deeply worn molds made in the 
pathway of time by the steps of their ancestors. 
With Mr. Cornell these qualities were superlative 
gifts. As a carpenter he improved the methods of 
his village master ; as a .mechanic he devised ma- 
chines which overcame unexpected difficulties ; as an 
unprejudiced practical man he became familiar with 
the uses of electricity while the professor was still 
lecturing upon its dangers. 

Morse had discovered the telegraph, and if he 
had lived in an earlier age he would have been either 
incarcerated or incinerated. Bigots looked with sus- 
picion upon this possibly sacrilegious trifling with 
the lightning, scientists doubted the utility of the 
invention and congressmen regarded it with distrust. 
The inventor needed an undaunted and indomitable 



22 THE ADDRESSES. 

man of affairs to demonstrate to capitalists its possi- 
bilities and to tlie public its beneficence, and he 
found bim in Ezra Cornell, wbo saAv its future, and 
upon bis judgment staked tbe accumulations of his 
life and tbe almost superhuman labors of a decade. 
He owned electric shares of the face value of mil- 
lions and went hungry to bed because he had not 
the means to pay for a meal, and his family suffered 
because they could not be trusted for a barrel of 
flour. But neither want nor debt nor the sheriff 
could wrest from him his telegraph stock. I know 
of no more dramatic scene in the lives of any of 
our successful men than the spectacle of this po- 
tential millionaire tramping through the highways 
and byways of penury, suffering, and sickness, up- 
held by his sublime faith in his work and the cer- 
tainty of its recognition. Suddenly the darkness 
was dispelled and the day dawned. People woke up 
to the necessity of the telegraph for the government 
and for commerce, and Cornell's faith had coined for 
him a fortune. 

In a country like ours, where so many accumu- 
late great wealth, its proper use and distribution are 
becoming questions of national as well as individual 
interest. A half-centiiry ago the subject was un- 
known ; a quarter of a century ago the public 
thought little and cared less about it ; but to-da}^ it 
threatens to become the incentive to or the solvent of 
socialism. The concentration of riches and the cul- 
tivation of agrarianism have advanced with equal 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 23 

pace. The recent political movements, which in 
some states defeated both the national parties, were 
the expression at the polls of the silent forces whose 
growth and strength had been unnoticed. Though 
the principles of the new faith are vague, incoherent, 
and apparentl}^ absurd, the itnderlying power which 
welds and wields them is hatred and distrust of 
property. 

The objective point is at present the corporation. 
But, as the operation and necessity of this device for 
transacting a business in which all as stockholders 
can participate is better understood, the millionaire 
becomes the target. It is at once the anomaly and 
the danger of the crusade, that it enlists those who 
are themselves property-holders, as farmers or house- 
owners or tradesmen, against those who have more. 
Selfish and ostentatious wealth is the most potent 
agency for promoting the methods for its own dimi- 
nution and destruction by legislation, while the wise 
and generous use of money builds barriers for its 
protection. 

The most arrogant and offensive manager of 
money is often the man who has endured and suf- 
fered adversity and finally becomes a success. He 
proudly boasts, "I owe nothing to the world," and "no 
one ever did anything for me." He is neither sym- 
pathetic with the struggling nor sensitive to duty. 
As a money-making machine he incurs the enmity 
of his fellows and cares nothing for their good will. 
With an increasing contempt for those who fail to 



24 THE ADDRESSES. 

get on ill business comes a growing disparagement 
of the value of the work or services of others. He 
pays grudgingly, and gives regretfully only under 
the resistless pressure of his surroundings. In the 
lending of money he practices the arts of the usurer, 
and in speculation those of the gambler. The world 
gains nothing by his life, and his heirs are his only 
beneficiaries at his death. Such a man does iniinite 
harm. He is at once the excuse for and the irritant of 
the combination of the elements, which, either blind- 
ly or viciously, labor for the destruction of our insti- 
tions and laws. He has existed under all forms of 
government and society, but it is in a republic that 
he becomes peculiarly obnoxious, and the methods of 
reaching him seem more accessible. 

There are men who so use their wealth that the 
whole community rejoices in their good fortune and 
applauds the management of their trusts. Their 
course sharply differentiates between property and 
its administration. They draw the fire from vested 
interests, upon whose integrity and safet}^ the struct- 
ure of society depends, and concentrate it upon the 
unworthy steward who defies the written laws of 
God and the unwritten ones of men. A most noble 
and brilliant representative of this class was the 
founder of this university. Prosperity made him 
neither an idler nor a voluptuary. It added fresh 
vigor to his work, enlarged his vision, and broad- 
ened his sympathies. No mawkish sentimentality 
nor theatrical surprises were in his character. He 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 25 

determined to devote a portion of his fortune to 
the welfare of his countrymen and countrywomen 
and decided that the best way was to give them the 
education and training with which to help them- 
selves. He had the self-made man's belief that a 
successful career is possible to every one who tries, 
but he knew from sore experience how difficult is prog- 
ress for the poorly equipped in the sharp competi- 
tion of life. He did not give up money-making. On 
the contrary, the more beneficent purposes to which 
he found it could be applied, the harder he worked 
to gain more. His was the ideal of the divine injunc- 
tion to be "diligent in business, serving the Lord." 
In great crises in the history of nations and in 
the conjunction of events which produce revolutions 
in the moral, the mental, or the physical conditions 
of a people, God always provides the man for the 
emergency. The causes which produce him and the 
results which follow his actions may form an epoch 
in the development of the race or only contribute to 
characteristics which mark a century. A Caesar, a 
Hannibal, a Napoleon, a Peter the Hermit, a Luther, 
are eras in the story of the world. The generations 
which live in the period of the activities of such 
phenomenal genius are either consumed by the 
burning heat of the sun or blinded by its radiance. 
Centuries must elapse before we can calmly contem- 
plate their powers or achievements, forgetting the 
frightful sufferings and calamities through which 
their work assumed form and permanence. 



26 THE ADDRESSES. 

It is our happier lot to celebrate one of those mi- 
nor events which is not a revolution, but an evolu- 
tion. The government of the United States suddenly 
discovered that it had a duty to perform toward the 
education of the people. The federal constitution 
made it necessary to act through the states. Con- 
gress gave for this purpose a large grant of land, 
and nearly a million of acres came to New York. 
Schools struggling in financial difficulties, localities 
ambitious for an institution of learning, and specu- 
lators seeking the possession of the prize threatened 
the confiscation or dissipation of the trust. The 
friends of higher education, who had hoped for great 
benefits to the commonwealth from the wise admin- 
istration of this fund, were in despair. The wisdom 
and generosity of Mr. Cornell saved the honor of 
the state and rescued the national gift for education. 
He said: "Concentrate this endowment, which is 
the only way to get its benefits, and I will add a half 
million dollars to it from my own fortune." It is 
a significant commentary upon the ignorance and 
greed of the times and the progress indicated by this 
celebration that the state of New York exacted from 
Ezra Cornell $25,000 as a forced tribute for the priv- 
ilege of giving $500,000 of his own money for the 
permanent benefit of her people. 

The selection and placing upon the market b}^ 
the several states of these lands had reduced their 
price so low that but a fraction of the sum intended 
was realized. Then the same business sagacity, 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 27 

foresight, and indomitable courage which had carried 
the telegraph to success again came to the public 
service. The foimder contracted with the state to 
carry these lands and bear all the burdens of main- 
tenance and taxation until their value should be 
commensurate with the purposes for which they were 
dedicated. The trust impaired his fortune, increased 
his cares, and brought upon him a storm of criti- 
cism and slander, but the strength and grandeur of 
this great and growing university are the living 
monuments which vindicate his name and fame. 

The figures and results marvelously demonstrate 
the wisdom and sagacity of Kzra Cornell. The land 
grant to all the states was 9,597,840 acres, of which 
New York's alone was 989,920 acres. The whole 
grant realized the sum of $15,866,371, of which New 
York's part brought $6,661,473, or nearly one-half 
of the money for one-tenth of the land. Truly in 
this, as among the many events which have made 
New York the Empire State of the Union, when the 
clock struck the hovir the man among her people 
who was equal to the occasion answered, "Willing 
and ready." 

It was my privilege as a young man and the 
youngest member of the Legislature to sit beside Kzra 
Cornell. I learned to love and revere him. In those 
days, so full of the strife and passions of the civil 
war, it was a wonder and inspiration to listen to the 
peaceful plans of this practical philanthropist for the 
benefit of his fellow men. The times were big with 



28 THE ADDRESSES. 

gigantic schemes for the acquisition of sudden for- 
tunes, and his colleagues could not understand this 
most earnest and unselfish worker. To most of 
them he was a schemer whose purposes they could 
not fathom, and to the rest of us he seemed a dream- 
er whose visions would never materialize. These 
doubters of a quarter of a century ago esteem it a 
high privilege to stand in this presence and an hon- 
or to have the opportunity to contribiite a chaplet to 
the wreaths which crown the statue of Ezra Cornell. 
I remember that a scheme had been perfected 
whose ramifications extended all over the state and 
embraced the strongest men of both parties to raid 
the treasury upon a false assumption of the needs of 
the canals. The measure was sprung suddenly tip- 
on the house, and as chairman of the committee of 
ways and means it was my duty to fight it. I was 
almost wholly unprepared for the task. When the 
enemy seemed about to triumph, Mr. Cornell opened 
his desk, took from it a carefully arranged mass 
of figures and statistics, and placed them before me. 
"I have been gathering these for several weeks," he 
said, "in order to make a speech against this bill, 
but you need them now." They gave such full and 
complete refutations of the claims of the combination 
that at the close of the debate the proposed act was 
defeated and its advocates so completely routed that 
it was never revived. He cared more for the triumph 
of the triith than for any fame he might gain as its 
advocate. It was this utter oblivion to self which 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 29 

led him to sacrifice everything for this university 
when once he had become convinced of its necessity 
and laid its foundations. 

It was the highest public spirit which moved him 
to contribute a half million of dollars to concentrate 
and preserve the congressional land grant. It was 
the nobility which rises above natural and justifiable 
indignation that made him submit to the toll of 
$25,000 for the privilege of grandly giving of his own. 
It was the spirit of which martyrs are made that in- 
spired him to carry the land grant through years of 
financial depression, periling his fortune and impair- 
ing his health with the burden until finally the trust 
which would have brought only thousands realized 
millions. It was the martyr to the purest and loftiest 
sense of duty to his country and mankind, who 
buried the larger part of his estate building the rail- 
roads which connected his university with the trans- 
portation facilities of the country. But he secured 
for the people a seat of learning which will be ever 
increasing in strength and beneficence, and for him- 
self the gratitude of all succeeding generations and 
immortal fame. 

Text-books and lectures are only part of an ed- 
ucation. There is more growth without than within 
the class-room. The faculty may be ever so faithful 
and learned — there is still much beyond them. The 
spirit of a college indelibly impresses its students. 
With the century-old foundations, it is the treasured 
memories and traditions of a brilliant past. It is the 



30 THE ADDRESSES. 

force of the accumulated achievements and examples 
of generations of alumni who have illustrated and 
illumined the progress and glory of the republic. It 
matters little to Yale or Harvard that their founders 
are scarcely more than names with which nothing 
tangible can be connected. It is much — it is every- 
thing — to young Cornell that her sons can be in- 
spired by such a founder. 

The main object of higher education through all 
the ages had been to prepare men for the next world. 
It had not been thought necessary to do much for 
women, either for earth or heaven. The Puritans 
started the college with the settlement, but it was to 
train young men for the Christian ministry. We 
have not yet entirely recovered from the belief that a 
university career is worse than useless, except for 
the pulpit, law, and medicine. But the founder of 
this institution profoundly believed that the better 
fitted a man was for his life-work, the better his 
preparation for an existence beyond the grave. A 
successful worker, in a nation of workers, cared 
nothing for speculative philosophies, but had un- 
bounded faith in the possibilities of an educated 
farmer or mechanic. 

The materialism of our time is frequently de- 
nounced and eloquently assailed. It is in a sense 
the protest of the present against the past ; of the 
practical progressists against the musty schoolmen. 
It gives our people more and better homes. Its in- 
ventions add immeasurably to the comfort and happi- 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 3 1 

ness of our lives. Its enterprise and energy develop 
our resources and increase our national wealth. 
Gross materialism, which sacrifices everything to the 
mere accumulation of money, merits the censure it 
receives, but the real benefactors of the world in our 
age of hard struggles and hot competition are those 
who do most to fit both heads and hands for the 
needs of the hour. Whatever blessings have be- 
longed in the past to him who made two blades of 
grass to grow where only one did before, are equally 
earned by the man whose locomotive or electrical de- 
vice or machine or engine have multiplied power and 
simplified labor. Every scientific or mining, tech- 
nological or manual-training school is the outgrowth 
of and contribution to our higher materialism. The 
new learning is not an assault upon but an enlarge- 
ment of the old. The splendid results of ancient 
methods keep firm their hold upon the colleges. The 
training they give is equally beneficial for business 
and the professions. 

It is the liberal education for ordinary pursuits 
which this university has demonstrated to be one of 
the great aims of teaching. "I would found an insti- 
tution where any person can find instruction in any 
study," was the motto of the founder. It embraces 
in its catholic hospitality both sexes and all condi- 
tions in life. It is a trite truism that intelligence 
and virtue are the safety of a republic. For our 
period intelligence requires a broader interpretation. 
The ordinary equipment of the school is not sufifi- 



32 THE ADDRESSES. 

cient now, though it might have been with our fa- 
thers. It must be supplemented by both practical 
and scientific training for one's chosen vocation. 

The rule of the thumb was the orthodox faith of 
the past and is the transparent weakness for the 
present. Greek and Latin will continue to occupy 
leading places in a liberal education. These lan- 
guages may be dead as spoken tongues, but they 
embalm the priceless treasures of the past which 
have more than once rescued learning from the dark- 
ness and led the mind of the age to the light. It is 
not everyone who has the time, the disposition, or 
the ability to master the classic curriculum and its 
attendant requirements. There was no place for 
them within a period so recent that it hardly ante- 
dates the day we celebrate. 

The academy of Plato flourished at Athens for 
nine hundred years. It preserved and stimulated 
the intellectual life of the civilized world through 
all those centuries. Justinian prepared the way for 
the dark ages by closing this venerable seat of learn- 
ing and confiscating its endowments. But his prac- 
tical education perished with the classical teaching 
which he thought useless. 

In this university Plato's academy and the new 
education can dwell harmoniously and work benefi- 
cently on the same campus. The student has his 
choice between higher education for mental discipline 
and intellectual strength and pleasure, and higher 
education specifically for his vocation. His diploma 



MR. DRPEW'S ORATION. 33 

informs the Avorld precisely what his alma mater has 
given. A review of the courses prescribed and per- 
mitted here would have paralyzed Duns Scotus, 
amazed Erasmus, and shocked Abelard. They would 
have felt that they had touched the base earth and 
its ignoble occupants. But we could not live in the 
clouds of the middle ages. With us the earth is the 
Lord's, and its dwellers his children, with equal 
rights and share in its blessings and opportunities. 
All work in it or on it is noble. 

This experiment was hailed with derision and 
distrust. It had been settled by Plato's academy, 
and never after doubted, that repose and retirement 
from the activities of life were essential to study and 
thought. The venerable grove and the moss-covered 
and ivy-crowned hall were the symbols of learning. 
"The roar of the steam engine, the shriek of its 
whistle, the clatter of machinery, the fascination of 
the electric motors, the handiwork of the architect, 
the engineer, the surveyor, the farmer, the artisan, 
upon the campus will destroy," said the teachers, "all 
concentration upon text-books and reflection upon 
lectures." The issue was confidently met and cour- 
ageously fought. We are here to celebrate the suc- 
cess of the idea of which Cornell is the chief expo- 
nent. From the chairs of the faculty of many col- 
leges, from the bench, the bar, the pulpit, the doctor's 
office, and the editorial sanctum ; from the field, the 
farm, and the factory ; from the counting room, the 
telegraph, and the railway, the alumni of Cornell 



34 THE ADDRESSES. 

university are gathered to do loving and reverent 
honor to the gifts which have lifted them into both 
the practice and enjoyment of their several pursuits. 

Sir William Hamilton declared that "none of our 
intellectual studies tend to cultivate a smaller num- 
ber of the faculties in a more partial and feeble man- 
ner than mathematics." Dr. Whewell writes that 
"mere classical reading is a narrow and enfeebling 
education," while Herbert Spencer solves in his large 
way the whole problem of study by his compact 
statement that "to suppose that deciding whether a 
mathematical or a classical education is the best in 
deciding what is the proper curriculum, is much the 
same thing as to suppose that the whole of dietetics 
lies in ascertaining whether or not bread is more nu- 
tritive than potatoes." The wise liver finds food in 
the life and products of the land, the water, and the 
air, and selects that which nourishes him best. And 
so classics and mathematics, — history, literature, and 
philosophy, — physics, botany, zoology, physiology, 
and the structure of the mind, — politics, economics, 
and science, — intellectual development and manual 
training, are the component parts of the equipment 
which the new learning offers to the student for his 
choice and needs. The variety and excellence of the 
world, the multiplication and beneficence of its activ- 
ities, are due to the fact that what is meat for one 
man is poison for his neighbor. 

The marvelous quarter of a centur}^ behind us 
has no srreater distinction than the advance in the 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 35 

education of woman. The doubts which surrounded 
the movement have been dispelled by the splendid 
demonstration of her ability to successfully compete 
with her brothers in any and every field of intellect- 
ual study and research. It is now urged that, when 
returning home, she is so much better educated than 
the village swain, she either rejects him and fails in 
her mission, or, as his wife, despises him. Ignorance 
is no excuse for keeping others ignorant. The 
alumnae of our female colleges will see to it that 
their boys are educated, and they are more and more 
every year the most active and effective workers for 
greater facilities and freer opportunities for study. 
Their co-education at Cornell with the young men 
has c;iltivated the best traits and most chivalric 
characteristics of American manhood. Their ambi- 
tion and success have stimulated every department 
of the university to more earnest effort and higher 
ideals. 

The emancipation of woman from the crushing 
slavery of a few overcrowded and wretchedly remu- 
nerated industries has increased incalculably both the 
sum of human happiness and the well-being of our 
communities. Education has fitted her for fields 
which needed her labor, and the world is enriched 
by her skill and fidelity, and the better for her inde- 
pendence. 

The eighteenth century produced only two inven- 
tions — Franklin's lightning-rod and a machine for 
the manufacture of nails. The nineteenth, with the 



2,6 THE ADDRESSES. 

telegraph and teleplione, the sewing macliine and 
the cotton gin, the railway and the steamship, and 
the thousands of other motors of progress, has re- 
deemed and regenerated the globe. These marvels 
have changed the relations of men to each other and 
revolutionized their standing with the state. They 
have proved hotbeds of democracy and encouraged 
despotism. The pace has been too rapid for human- 
it}^ to adjust itself to the new conditions. Both so- 
ciety and the commonwealth require educated intelli- 
gence for their safety. The fathers built their 
republic upon the individual. His independence was 
the keystone of the arch which supported their insti- 
tutions. The mighty forces which the inventions 
have made obedient to the service of man have so in- 
creased productive power and energy that we live in 
an era of great combinations. 

Organization threatens the destruction of the in- 
dividual. The corporation or the trust says he shall 
not do business except as their employee or by 
merging his plant in theirs, and the labor union says 
he shall not work unless he does so by its rules and 
with its permission. Aggregated capital, united to 
build up and carry on important enterprises, causes 
labor to create counter forces for protection. The 
one attacks the small producer or manufacturer and 
drives him out of business, and the other prohibits 
the artisan from individually accepting employment, 
no matter what his skill, his desire or necessities. 
The same concentration of power has invaded the 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 37 

sphere of politics. Our cities are governed by one or 
more powerful leaders, who, without the responsibil- 
ities of of&ce, command the unquestioning obedience 
of the ofEce-holders, and our states are rapidly run- 
ning into the same conditions. 

In 1862 Abraham Lincoln had upon his desk the 
emancipation proclamation and the land grant bill to 
promote education. He signed them both. The one 
was an essential complement of the other. Without 
education, emancipation does not emancipate. The 
freedman exchanges one thralldom for another. The 
tendencies of our times are much plainer than the 
remedies. It is utterly inconsistent with the welfare 
of our people that conflicts between capital and labor 
should always end in the primitive barbarism of a 
condition of war, with either the citizen soldiers un- 
der arms or semi-military private organizations doing 
police duty. Educate, educate, educate, is the na- 
tional necessity. It takes time for emigrants coming 
to our shores to fully absorb the principles of Amer- 
ican liberty, but their children can be so firmly 
grounded in its truths in the schools that they will 
be the best and bravest citizens of the state. 

The grand mission of institutions like Cornell 
is the training and graduating of men of indepen- 
dent thought and action. The self-reliance which 
comes from the conscious mastery of one's calling is 
independence, and when supplemented by the teach- 
ings and touch of the universit}^ is liberty. Every 
youth who goes out into the world from any depart- 



38 THE ADDRESSES. 

ment of this college becomes in the community 
where he settles an influence for right thinking and 
right acting. He is a standard for better work in 
his vocation. One of the diiEculties of our situation 
is the mass of half educated and badly trained 
young men who come every year from our schools. 
Their equipment is too superficial for the professions 
or for business, and they have no preparation for the 
trades. They emphasize by their necessities and 
their careers the call for every possible extension of 
the new learning. It is both a commentary upon 
the public necessity for education and a comfort for 
the future that there can be found in the ranks of 
socialism or anarchy in the United States scarcely a 
single graduate of any high school — classical, tech- 
nological, or manual-training. 

Cornell gives free education to nearly six hun- 
dred students, the representatives of the assembly 
districts of the state of New York. In doing this 
she fulfills in fourfold measure the spirit and letter 
of her foundation. But the Empire State should not 
permit her sons to be a drain upon resources which 
have been so wisely husbanded and so admirably ad- 
ministered. It should generously recognize the 
splendid work done at Cornell and appropriate the 
means for the tuition of those who are here and 
those who wish to come. Then there would grow up 
on the shores of Cayuga lake a student republic 
rivaling those which greeted the middle-age revival 
of learning and instinct with the life and energy 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 39 

and aspirations of to-day. The picture and the pros- 
pect should thrill the people of New York with loyal 
pride. 

A few years ago the University of Heidelberg 
celebrated its five-hundredth anniversary. The heir 
to the throne of the German empire presided. 
Princes responded to the sentiments, and around the 
great hall hung the banners and armorial devices 
of the hereditary rulers of the land. The spectacle 
was brilliant and imposing, and the dazzling display 
of the emblems of rank and power made it a memo- 
rable pageant. When your eyes had become accus- 
tomed to the sheen of the armor and weapons and 
jewels, and your ears to the blare of the trumpets, 
you instinctively queried, What lesson of these five 
centuries does this ceremonial teach ? You saw the 
baron in his castle on the Rhine, with his vassals at 
his feet ; you felt the power and glory of Teutonic 
valor and achievements ; you knew of the scholars 
and learned men who had passed the portals of the 
university : but you felt that the political, the social, 
and the material conditions of the age of invention 
and democracy were not represented. 

It is the proud boast of Cornell that she is not 
only, abreast with the times, but is leading them. 
No traditions retard her growth, and no legends ob- 
scure for her the truth. She feels the movement of 
the intellectual activities of the country and the 
throbbing pulse of our industrial development. Her 
twenty-five years are coincident with the unparalleled 



40 THE ADDRESSES. 

progress of the United States since the close of the 
civil war, and her wonderfnl growth has been stimu- 
lated by its impulse. 

Said Mr. Gladstone to me: " If I had to select 
from all the half-centuries of recorded time the fifty 
years in which to pass my active life, I Avould choose 
the fifty years in which I have worked. It has been 
fifty years of emancipation." What is true of this 
most remarkable and potential statesman is still more 
applicable to this university. Her quarter of a cen- 
tury is the high-water mark of intellectual activity, 
scientific discovery, realizq,tion of liberty, and mate- 
rial progress. Hero-worship is the happiness and 
inspiration of youth, and we have for this period 
Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan in 
statesmanship and arms in our own country, and 
Gladstone, Bismarck, Von Moltke, Thiers, Cavour, 
and Gambetta abroad. Literature has been enriched 
by Ruskin and Hawthorne, Taine and Emerson, 
Longfellow and Tennyson, Bancroft and Green, 
Whittier, Lowell, and Holmes. Scholars and scien- 
tists, too numerous for record in the limits of this 
address, have irradiated this era with the results of 
their genius. 

Edison and Bell and others have demonstrated 
the limitless possibilities of electricity. The spirit 
of invention and discovery has broken down the 
doors which safe-guarded the secrets of nature and 
let loose the imprisoned forces of resistless energy 
and remorseless power and tamed and trained them 



MR. DEPEW'S ORATION. 41 

to the service of man. The emancipation of the 
slave and the reconstruction of the states, the educa- 
tion of the freedmen and the restoration of national 
unity and national patriotism, are our object lessons 
in philanthropy and statecraft of priceless value to 
this and coming generations. 

In the heroic age its honors and renown were 
for those who had been most successful in killing 
their fellow human beings. In our prosaic one, they 
are reserved for those who do most and best to pre- 
serve the lives, improve the health, increase the hap- 
piness, and promote the welfare of the men and 
women of the present and the future. Philanthropy 
has by natural evolution grown from an impulse to a 
science. The indiscriminate giving which pauper- 
ized has become the wise endowment for restoration 
to independence or the training for leadership. Our 
benefactions assume two forms, the one for repairs 
and the other for construction. In the first are hos- 
pitals, homes, and asylums, and in the second the 
school, the college, the university, and the library. 
Money yields its most satisfactory return when it is 
spent to open and smooth the pathways of youth to 
opportunity and careers. The investment com- 
pounds, and in compounding reduplicates its benefi- 
cence with each generation of students, while the 
benefactor has his fame freshened and enlarged by 
every recurring class till the end of time. 

The enduring monuments of those who have 
promoted the growth of Cornell are fast filling the 



42 THE ADDRESSES. 

campus. Tliey are the buildings devoted to liberal 
learning which they have erected or furnished and 
endowed. Next to the name of the founder comes 
the benefactor Henry W. Sage, and then that noble, 
far-sighted, and unselfish woman whose eyes closed 
in death in the belief that she had done all she could 
for the university which she loved. Boardman and 
Barnes and White and Sibley head the roll of honor, 
which will increase with the annual celebration of 
the founder's day. 

" I would found an institution where any person 
can find instruction in any study" is the chart, the 
compass, and the beacon light for Cornell. It shows 
all the oceans and continents of knowledge, it points 
the course of safety, according as the student would 
sail close to shore or fearlessly venture upon the 
boundless deep, and it warns him to keep and per- 
mits him to remain within the lines for which he has 
the ability, taste, and time. It is a motto under 
which the sons of the laborer and the millionaire, of 
the lawyer and the merchant, of the farmer and the 
mechanic, meet for the enjoyment of its equal gifts 
and opportunities. Cornell rounds her first quarter- 
century with a record of growth, maturity, and 
power unequaled in the histor^^ of colleges. Superb 
as is her youth, it is still only the promise of the 
splendors of her maturity and the ripened and soft- 
ened grandeur of her age. 



MR. Woodford's address. 43 

At the end of Mr. Depew's oration President Scliurman 
said : 

We had expected on this occasion to have with us the 
President of the United States. He cordially accepted the in- 
vitation of the University ; but in a letter which I hold in my 
hand, dated September igth, Mr. Cleveland sa3'S that, owing 
to the condition of public business in Washington, it will be 
impossible for him to be present with us. He sends us, how- 
ever, his greeting, which I am sure you will all be glad to re- 
ciprocate. 

When the University was opened, the State of New York 
was represented at the exercises by her Lieutenant-Governor. 
From that day to this, that gentleman has been among our 
warmest friends, among our most devoted Trustees. He was 
then j'oung, full of faith and hope, endowed with the gift of 
speech, and interested in public affairs. He is still a public 
man, still eloquent, still sympathetic, and, in spite of the lapse 
of time, still young. He will now address you, — the Hon. 
Stewart L. Woodford, LL.D. 



MR. WOODFORD'S ADDRESS. 

My friends, I hardly dare trust myself to say a 
word. Of all the men who stood at the cradle of 
Cornell University only twenty-five years ago, there 
are but two living : Andrew D. White, our first Pres- 
ident, now serving the Republic in distant lands, and 
myself. Ezra Cornell, our founder, Horace Gree- 
ley, are dead. Brastus Brooks, George W. Schuyler, 
Sibley, Barnes, Boardman, all have gone across the 
river. From the tower above this great library ring 
the chimes that first rang out that October afternoon 



44 THE ADDRESSES. 

twenty-five years ago, and slie whose spirit voice 
seems to speak to us in those chimes is in the better 
land above. I have no words. Heart, memory, hope, 
are all too full. Cornell has more than answered the 
promise of her childhood — God grant that in the 
centuries to come she may do good work, true work, 
loyal work, for education, for humanity, for the Re- 
public. 

President Schurman then said : Cornell University is 
one of the sisterhood of colleges, universities, and institutions of 
higher learning, over which in the State of New York we 
have that unique and venerable institution known as the Uni- 
versit}' of the State of New York. The next speaker is the 
Chancellor of the University, the Rev. Anson J. Upson, D.D., 
I.I..D. 

CHANCELIvOR UPSON'S ADDRESS. 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Personally I have no right to address this distin- 
guished audience. Only my official position in the 
educational system of this state Avould justify your 
Trustees in giving me the privilege of representing 
here the Regents of the University of the State of New 
York. I am encouraged, however, by the fact that 
Cornell University has recognized frequently, in the 
most friendly way, the work of our Board. It might 
have been otherwise. The work of the Regents is 
supervisory and nothing else. This institution, very 
naturally, might have refused to be thus supervised. 
It was not chartered by the Regents, but by the. 



CHANCELLOR UPSON'S ADDRESS. 45 

Legislature. Its endowments, in tlie beginning, were 
large, and soon became mucb larger than those 
of any other college in this state. Its educational 
methods were somewhat peculiar. All these things 
and others like them, naturally might have created 
and fostered a spirit of independence or indifference. 
But Cornell University has shown no such indepen- 
dent spirit. From the beginning, you have courte- 
ously and loyally transmitted to Albany very full 
and most suggestive and valuable annual reports. In 
the annual convocation of the teachers of New York, 
in the capitol, none of our colleges has been more 
frequently and fully represented. The Presidents of 
the university, without exception, have honored us by 
their dignified presence. They have benefited the 
teachers of the state by their wide experience and 
stimulated them by their inspiriting eloquence. Your 
professors have contributed largely to the interest 
and usefulness of the convocation, by giving us the 
results of their scholarship in erudite and sometimes 
profound papers, and in vigorous and influential dis- 
cussion. 

For all this and much more, permit me in the 
name of the Regents of the University to express 
our thanks. And you will also permit us to share in 
the congratulations of this occasion. We would 
unite with you in paying deserved honor to the wor- 
thy examples embalmed in your history. 

I need not repeat the familiar facts in the life of 
your founder who gave you his name. The whole 



46 THE ADDRESSES. 

world has recognized already his worth. As you, 
Mr. President, have quoted from the historian Froude, 
giving to the words your own significant endorse- 
ment : "a sublime figure anywhere," says the histor- 
ian, " he seems to me the most surprising and vener- 
able object I have seen in America." I need not tell 
any of those who hear me what a broad-minded, sym- 
pathetic, unselfish, self-sacrificing, original philan- 
thropist he was. But I may remind you that all his 
beneficent work was done to give to young men and 
young women the best possible education ; and by 
whom ? By a man whose own early ediicational op- 
portunities wei'e quite limited. What an example is 
this of broad-minded magnanimit}' ! thus providing 
for others far more than he himself had received ! 

And Ezra Cornell has not been the only benefac- 
tor here. The names attached appropriately to these 
libraries, these buildings for religious service and in- 
struction and for legal education and for scientific 
teaching in philosophy and the arts ; and the names 
given appropriately to the various endowments of the 
University — such names as Morrill and Sage and 
Sibley and McGraw and Barnes and Fayerweather 
and Boardman — all these not only keep in mind- the 
memory of j^our benefactors, but they perpetuate the 
influence of their noble example. 

While I would honor every one who has contrib- 
uted to the usefulness and glory of this great uni- 
versity, I cannot deny myself the privilege, taking 
advantage of his absence, of paying deserved honor 



CHANCELLOR UPSON'S ADDRESS. 47 

at this time, to my life-long friend Andrew Dickson 
White, the intimate associate of Mr. Cornell in the 
organization of this university, a munificent donor 
towards your endowments and your library and who 
for seventeen years was your President. The inher- 
itor of large wealth, highly educated, he might have 
given himself up wholly to self-indulgence, to the 
refined enjoyments of a dilettante. Rather, by his 
own preference, he devoted many years of his life 
largely to the laborious work of education. Such an 
example, as uncommon as it is beneficent, deserves 
grateful recognition here and now. 

But this university, within the past twenty-five 
years, has enriched the world in other ways equally 
essential to its own life and growth. Many of your 
professors have increased the treasures of good learn- 
ing by their published books in philosophy, in his- 
tory, in the sciences theoretical and applied, in peda- 
gogy, in literature ancient and modem. 

And especially would I congratulate the univer- 
sity upon the large number of faithful teachers, who 
may or may not have published books ; but who have 
given to you and your graduates long years of faith- 
ful service — the best years of their lives — with a de- 
votion like that of a sailor to his ship, or a soldier to 
his regiment, or a patriot to his country. All honor 
to the steadfast devotion of your loyal instructors, 
not always remembered as they should be on occa- 
sions like the present ! 

Besides, many of your educational methods have 



4« THE ADDRESSES. 

attracted attention and promoted educational reform. 
Cornell University was among the first, if not the 
very first, of our colleges to recognize and practice 
the principle that " students should be expected to 
govern themselves in a spirit of manly self-respect." 
Let me congratulate you on the siiccess of this man- 
ly method. In your collegiate discipline and in your 
examinations, you appeal to the student's honor. 
You have no proctors. I am glad to testify that your 
example has modified, if it has not abolished, in 
many institutions a degrading and deceit-encouraging 
method of college government. 

Still further, a true college, in its spirit, is the 
purest democracy in the world. In no community 
will a young man be estimated at his true value — 
find his level — so soon as in a college. This will be 
true, unless extraneous circumstances, such as wealth 
or social culture or the ofiicial rank of members of 
the young man's family or the reputation of his an- 
cestry, are permitted to interfere with the natural 
characteristics and tendencies of collegiate life. 
Now, in the spirit of your founder, this has been a 
school for the education, pre-eminently, of young 
men and young women of limited means of support. 
And in the organization of this universit}^, "the 
Trustees pledged themselves to use every effort to 
prevent any caste spirit in any department." Unless 
I have been misinformed, their efforts have met, thus 
far, with unprecedented success. And it is for me a 
matter of congratulation to-day that the example of 



CHANCELLOR UPSON's ADDRESS. 49 

this institution has been largely influential in re- 
straining, if not in destro3dng, such degrading and 
destructive tendencies in other colleges in this and 
in other states. 

With some experience and observation as a col- 
legiate instructor, you will permit me to say further, 
that, in my judgment, the method of religious in- 
struction here provided in Sage Chapel is well adapt- 
ed to accomplish the best results. It has been said 
that this listening, Sunday after Sunday, to succes- 
sive preachers, representing various forms of Chris- 
tian faith, will encourage only the habit of making 
comparisons constantly. It has been said that this 
habitual criticism will destroy the practical effect of 
the discourses preached. There may be some truth 
in this. No method can be unobjectionable, wholly. 
But if a single chaplain give instruction by himself 
alone, the advantage of variety is lost. And I be- 
lieve that variety is very attractive and interesting, 
especially to the young. Variety also is more influ- 
ential practically than monotony. Monotony cer- 
tainly will not prevent criticism. It will encourage 
it rather. 

And so I believe that in a large institution like 
this, which has no distinctive denominational aflilia- 
tions, and where students of many forms of faith are 
assembled, — in a large institution like this, — the es- 
tablishment of various ethical and denominational 
societies like those established here, such as "The 
Baptist Circle," "The Brotherhood of St. Andrew," 



50 THE ADDRESSES. 

"The Catholic Union," "The Methodist Alliance," 
"The Presbyterian Union" — all these will afford 
abundant opportunities for religious worship and in- 
struction and for Christian activity. 

Few thoughtful persons can stand on this mag- 
nificent campus, surrounded by these stately halls, 
amidst all these inspiriting examples of beneficent 
devotion to the good of humanity, rivaling in their 
glory even the beauty of the fair landscape of valley 
and lake and near and distant hills, under a sky of 
"everlasting blue," which nature here presents to our 
sight, — no thoughtful person can stand here and not 
ask himself what will be the future of this remarka- 
ble creation, the growth of only twenty-five years ? 
The inevitable answer and the encouraging answer 
will be : you cannot kill a college : you cannot move 
a college. 

So long as there are young men and young wom- 
en who are not willing to be ignorant, so long as 
there are devoted teachers ready to give their lives to 
instruction ; so long will institutions like this bless 
the world. 

I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, yet I 
venture to predict that, in all the future centuries of 
the life of this university, there will be no less atten- 
tion paid than is now given to classical study. 
Teachers and scholars here will never find a better 
way than by training in the classics, to gain a vigor- 
ous and comprehensive judgment, a ready and reten- 
tive memory, a sensitive and refined taste. 



CHANCELLOR UPSON'S ADDRESS. 5 1 

I venture to predict also that hereafter in your 
halls there will be given no less instruction than now 
in religious truth. No sectarian control, under 
whatever name, liberal or orthodox, it may conceal 
itself, no such control will be tolerated here. And 
yet, so long as God and man exist, so long will in- 
struction be demanded and instruction continue to be 
given, more and more, in those eternal verities which 
express God's relations to us and our relations to 
Him and to each other. 

I do not think either that you will ever have too 
large a library. Thanks to the wisdom of your bene- 
factors, the library has not been the last thing thought 
of in this institution, and never will be neglected. 

You will not charge me with reactionism, if I 
take the liberty to predict also that elective studies in 
your curriculum, now so free to all who enter the 
university, will be more restricted, as experience may 
teach that restriction is necessary. This great free 
university is not a slave to its own precedents. No 
college curriculum hitherto has been more open to 
revision. It is not impossible that, in order that 
your students may pursue profitably your courses of 
study, the need of more thorough previous disci- 
pline will become so apparent and so urgent, that you 
may increase and advance your requirements for en- 
trance, until they shall equal the requirements for 
graduation at other colleges. Thus yours may be- 
come the post-graduate university of the State of 
New York. 



52 THE ADDRESSES. 

But, Mr. President, wliatever educational metliods 
experience may teach us as to these matters of de- 
tail, about which educational authorities may differ, 
sure I am that every institution in this State, under 
the supervision of the Board of Regents, has but one 
object, essentially, and that is to improve, in every 
possible particular, its own method of education. 
No large institution desires to crush out the smaller. 
The small and the great are fulfilling equally their 
purpose. 

And yet in educational affairs, as in many other 
particulars, we are deficient in state pride. As a 
people, in educational matters certainly, we are too 
cosmopolitan. We love our neighbors better than 
ourselves. We do not provide sufficiently for our 
ow-n. We give millions to elementary education. I 
would give no less to the common schools ; but high- 
er education, so called, in this commonwealth, has 
cost the State — the people — through taxation com- 
paratively nothing. Each tax-payer pays less than 
one cent a year for so-called higher education ! The 
endowments, insufficient as they are, of high schools, 
academies, and colleges in our State, have not come 
from the State, but from lotteries, private individuals, 
or from the United States Government. In this 
matter, the people of Michigan, and the people of 
Wisconsin and other western States do much better 
than we do. In those States, in " the wild west " if 
you please, the policy of the people is much more 
liberal towards themselves. 



CHANCELLOR UPSON'S ADDRESS. 53 

It is not surprising, therefore, that some of our 
neighbors of other states estimate the value of our 
higher education by the estimate we seem to put 
upon it, — by what we give to it. Our neighbors 
acknowledge our commercial supremacy. Our polit- 
ical power is admitted. The learning and wisdom 
of our legal decisions are respectfully recognized. 
And yet, somehow, many of our near neighbors, in 
other states, seem to think that to live in the State 
of New York is evidence, prima facie yet conclu- 
sive evidence, of intellectual inferiority and of com- 
parative ignorance, or, at the best, of incapacity for 
the highest mental achievements. I hope you will 
not doubt my word : I speak the plain truth when I 
tell you that, when I lived in Albany a few years 
ago, a Boston teacher actually said to me, to my very 
face, " Why, sir, I have listened to you in private con- 
versation and in public addresses, and really, sir, for 
a New Yorker you speak very good English." You 
may smile at the absurd compliment, but it implies 
a peculiar state of opinion — an opinion which ought 
to stimulate us in our educational work. 

Let us say no more that higher education in this 
State costs too much. Mr. President, the value of a 
thoroughly educated man is incalculable. Did John 
Marshall cost the State of Virginia too much ? — Mar- 
shall, whose education raised him from an obscure 
plantation to be a Chief Justice of the United States, 
whose opinions vitalized and perpetuated the United 
States Constitution, making it paramount and un- 



54 THE ADDRESSES. 

changeable by ordinary legislation ? Did Thomas 
Jefferson cost the State of Virginia too much? — Jef- 
ferson, the peaceful purchaser for his country, for a 
comparatively trivial sum, of what was then a vast, 
unknown territory vaguely called Louisiana ; did 
Thomas Jefferson cost the State of Virginia too 
much? — Jefferson, the au^thor of the Declaration of 
Independence and of the statute of Virginia for re- 
ligious freedom, and the founder of the University 
of Virginia; himself a graduate of the college of 
William and Mary, in accordance with an injunction 
left by his father on his death-bed, a circumstance 
which his son always remembered with gratitude, 
saying that, if he had to choose between the educa- 
tion and the estate his father left him, he would 
choose the education ? 

Did Daniel Webster cost the State of New Hamp- 
shire too much ? — Webster, whose education at Dart- 
mouth College transformed the New Hampshire 
farmer's boy into the great constitutional expounder 
whose doctrines preserved the integrity of the 
Union ? 

Did Alexander Hamilton cost the State of New 
York too much ? — Hamilton, whose education at Co- 
lumbia College developed in him the ability at seven- 
teen years of age to electrify the citizens of New 
York City, in a fervid speech for colonial rights, and 
afterwards to write the Federalist ? 

I might ask similar questions with the same 
answer about the cost to the State of New York of 



PROFESSOR CALDWELL'S ADDRESS. 55 

the education of DeWitt Clinton and William H. 
Seward and Horatio Seymour. To make such in- 
quiries is needless. All these questions, each and 
every one, answer themselves. 

Please accept, Mr. President, my thanks for your 
courteous patience in listening to my words. And 
permit me to renew to yourself and your honored 
colleagues and to the authorities and benefactors of 
the university the cordial congratulations of the 
Board of Regents, with expressions of our most sin- 
cere good will. 

President Schurman then said : The next speaker was to 
have been the Rev. Dr. Potter, President of Hobart College, 
but I regret to say that at the last moment he has found him- 
self unavoidably detained. 

The eloquent Chancellor has referred to the fact that nei- 
ther money nor buildings nor collections make a University, 
although the Universit}' without them is impossible. A Uni- 
versity exists for the sake of the instruction of youth and the 
enlargement of human knowledge, and to these ends those 
things are but instruments and means. 

The work of the University is done for men and by men. 
In this sense, the Faculty is the University. It is therefore 
not only appropriate, but necessaiy, considering the function 
of the Universit}', that the Faculty should be represented on 
this occasion ; and I have the pleasure now of presenting the 
first professor ever appointed in Cornell University, Dr. G. C. 
Caldwell. 

PROFESSOR CALDWEUL'S ADDRESS. 

On the twenty-second day of September, twenty- 
five years ago, about a dozen men, of whom but 



56 THE ADDRESSES. 

three are now in the Faculty, assembled in a small 
room of the Cornell Library building down in the 
town, where the light was almost as scanty as in a 
photographer's dark room, and held the first meeting 
of the Faculty of Cornell University. A little later 
other appointments were made, so that the first Reg- 
ister gave a list of twenty-three professors, of whom 
six are now here. On the sixth of October, the first 
entrance examinations were held in a large basement 
room of the same building, where the supply of 
light and air was not much more liberal than in the 
temporary Faculty room, under the general direction 
of our first Registrar, Dr. Wilson, whose kindly face 
and friendly greeting would have been sadly missed 
by the older alumni on this occassion. 

The English examinations were held in one 
corner of the room, the examination in mathematics 
in another corner, the geography in another, and, 
when all the corners were filled where there was 
light enough to write by, the lesser examinations 
were sandwiched in between. In these examinations 
all helped ; a professor of chemistry had charge of 
the orthography. It might have been wise to have 
first examined the professor himself in that branch 
of English ; indeed, the earliest records of the Fac- 
ulty present incontrovertible evidence that the spell- 
ing of at least one of its members was not altogether 
beyond criticism. But there was no time for an}^ 
such test of the ability of the examiners to do the 
work assigned to them, and they had to be taken on 



PROFESSOR CALDWELL'S ADDRESS. 57 

trust. A professor appointed to teach in one of the 
departments of natural history had, I believe, to look 
after the examination in algebra ; and so one and 
another of us was temporarily drafted into this un- 
anticipated service. 

The crudity of this arrangement for the entrance 
examinations, as compared with the present meth- 
ods, was no greater than the crudity of everything 
else in those days. Rickety barns, and slovenly 
barn-yards offended the senses where the extension 
of Sibley College is now going up ; the second uni- 
versity building, now called White Hall, simply pro- 
truded out of an excavation, the top of which reached 
nearly to the second-story windows at one end. The 
ventilation of the chemical laboratory, in the base- 
ment of Morrill Hall, was partly into the library and 
reading room above it ; readers there, not being 
chemists, did not find the chemical odors agreeable. 
An ancient, Virginia rail fence traversed the site of 
this building and its neighbor, Boardman Hall ; the 
minutes of the Faculty show that before the end of 
the first year the modest request was made of the 
Founder of the University, that he permit said fence 
to be moved 150 feet further to the south, in order 
that there might be a sufficiently large piece of level 
ground adjoining the campus for the military evolu- 
tions, and for ball games. 

Bridges, sidewalks, and even a road between the 
one university building and Cascadilla, the one home 
where almost everybody connected with the Univer- 



58 THE ADDRESSES. 

sity lived, either did not exist at all, or were only 
partially completed. It was a long time before 
the multitude of foot-tracks was obliterated, made by 
the passing of teachers and students down and up 
the banks of the ravine north of the site of the 
gymnasium ; when snow, slush, and mud alternated 
with each other in November, even a professor some- 
times forgot his dignity and slid down the bank, and 
by inadvertence not always all the way down on his 
feet, either ; the hearty sympathy bestowed upon 
such an unfortunate by student spectators can be 
imagined, if not believed in. 

What those teachers and students wpuld have 
done without Cascadilla for shelter it would be hard 
to say ; for the people of the town had apparently 
not then learned that there was money in taking 
boarders ; nor were there hardly more than a dozen 
dwelling houses nearer the University than half-way 
up Bast Hill. So Cascadilla was full from basement 
to attic ; and a professor who had not lived there at 
all was, in later times, hardly considered by his col- 
leagues as having fully earned his right to be a pro- 
fessor in the University. 

Of that original Faculty three have died : the 
genial William Charles Cleveland, before he had had 
a fair opportunity to develop his department of civil 
engineering at all ; Bvan Wilhelm Evans, a man of 
few words, but words always to the point, and most 
serviceable in Faculty councils ; enthusiastic Charles 
Frederick Hartt, for whom the splendid opportunit}^ 



PROFESSOR CALDWELL'S ADDRESS. 59 

to carry on investigations in Brazil for a time, in liis 
chosen field of work, was too tempting to be resisted, 
and in whicli he sacrificed his life ; and mention 
should not be omitted in this connection of Charles 
Chauncey Shackford, whose portrait a grateful class 
placed in our library ; though not of the original 
Faculty, he came in so early as to be almost as fully 
identified with the first beginnings of the life of the 
University as those of us who began our work only 
three years earlier. 

At the beginning there were also with us as lec- 
turers three of the most eminent and delightful men 
then living, Louis Agassiz, James Russell Lowell, 
and George William Curtis, all now dead also ; by 
their presence and their lectures, they added greatly 
to the interest of the beginning of that opening 
year, students and the people of the town crowding 
to hear them in Library Hall — as well they might, 
for no such treat has since been offered here in so 
brief a time. 

With that small Faculty meeting in a back room 
of Library Hall, and those hurried examinations in 
the dim basement near by, Cornell University start- 
ed out to do great things, under the enthusiastic and 
hopeful lead of Andrew D. White, who of all others 
among the living should be here on this anniver- 
sary. He and the ever honored Founder of the 
University never, I believe, even in her darkest days, 
faltered in their confidence that she would do great 
things. That confidence is fully justified ; the thou- 



6o THE ADDRESSES. 

sand and more students that they so undoubtingly 
predicted came sooner than at least many of us 
dreamed that it would ; and so manifest is her des- 
tiny, apparently, that the number goes climbing 
steadily upward to the two thousand mark, in spite 
of business depressions and panics. 

That liberality in all things, which was made so 
prominent a feature in the very charter of the Uni- 
versity, has been cordially accepted by the Faculty 
from the beginning as its policy. Men of all creeds 
and parties have worked together without question as 
to each other's views on religion or politics. But this 
liberality has not meant to them indifference in re- 
ligious matters ; the University Christian Associa- 
tion has become one of the strongest in the country, 
partly through the cordial co-operation of members 
of the Faculty ; and they have, besides, done their 
full share for the support of religious organizations 
in the town. The largest measure of personal free- 
dom consistent with the best welfare of the students 
has been allowed. Cordial relations have been main- 
tained with the public school system of the State, 
while at the same time the University has contribu- 
ted largely towards the gradual elevation of the 
standard of education throughout the State, in pro- 
portion as its own standards have been raised in 
like gradual manner. 

Co-education, even if not heartily endorsed by 
all, has nevertheless been given a fair trial. With 
its first appearance in the University I was perhaps 



PROFESSOR CALDWELL'S ADDRESS. 6 1 

somewhat more familiar than many of my colleagues. 
A more fortunate selection could not have been made 
for its introduction than Miss Eastman, who, before 
its legal authorization by the Trustees, pursued her 
work in chemistry at her place in the laboratory, in 
a dignified and unassuming way that won the respect 
of all her teachers. Being afterwards allowed by 
the Faculty to present her work done in various de- 
partments prior to actual admission of women as stu- 
dents, she was able to graduate in 1S73, after only 
four terms of attendance as a regular student. 

In this spirit of liberality the Faculty did all it 
could, consistently with what the best interests of 
the real educational work of the University seemed 
to require, to help in carrying out the Founder's 
cherished idea that self-support of students by labor 
of some kind shall be a leading feature of the Uni- 
versity. This idea had made a strong impression on 
young men seeking an education, and even on some 
seeking a livelihood besides. One of these wrote to 
inquire if, besides supporting himself, he could also 
support his mother and sister while getting his edu- 
cation. 

Mr. Cornell wished to see some kind of a factory 
on the university grounds, where all students desir- 
ing employment would find it. But all experienced 
educators in the Faculty knew that self-support 
while pursuing a college course had been too often a 
failure, to leave any hope of its success here, except 
in a few cases combining unusual pluck and unusual 



62 THE ADDRESSES. 

ability to learn. Mi:ch to the disappointment of Mr. 
Cornell, all schemes of this kind had to be soon 
abandoned. 

In the relations of the Faculty to the Trustees 
and its Executive Committee, there has been from 
the beginning that quiet confidence of each body 
that the other was doing all it could, in this same 
liberal spirit, for the promotion of the best interests 
of the University ; and this mutual confidence has 
fostered a cordial feeling between these two organiza- 
tions, both alike vitally interested in the welfare of 
the University, that of itself cannot but have con- 
tributed much towards the grand success that has 
already been attained in so short a time. 

I am supposed to speak on this occasion for the 
Faculty as it is at present. But this Faculty num- 
bers seventy, while there are hardly more than a 
dozen of us here who toiled through that early period 
of the life of the University. It were a far easier 
matter to speak as might be expected of me by the 
Faculty as a whole, if a larger proportion of those 
whom I represent had been with me then. What I 
naturally feel is not as they feel who, in all the vigor 
of a fresh manhood, have within these later years 
begun their career here, with prospects of success 
in the winning of high professional rank much more 
certain in their promise than appeared before us 
when we began our work. Only with the help 
of a vivid imagination can the younger men of to- 
day create for themselves a truthful picture of the 



PROFESSOR Caldwell's address. 63 

University as it was in our first days. Tliey may 
liave good ground for expecting that, when the next 
quarter-centennial comes to be celebrated, the Uni- 
versity will be as much greater and more prosperous 
than now, as it is now greater and more prosperous 
than it was at the outset and for many years after- 
wards. To us who know so well what it was and 
what it is, the realization of any such great expecta- 
tions seems beyond a reasonable possibility. 

Many of my younger colleagues may take part 
in the jubilation of 1918, and look back on twenty- 
five years of successful work accomplished, that gave 
them happiness in the doing of it, and brought them 
honor and fame as further reward ; we their old asso- 
ciates heartily wish all this for them. But, even 
while wishing it, our hearts cannot but be saddened 
by the thought that twenty-five years added to our 
lives, if so much it may be, means a very different 
thing for us ; in the inevitable course of events it 
means that at least some of us will have been obliged 
to give up our places to others, fresher and more vig- 
orous in body and mind — to give up to them the 
rooms, the haunts, and the pleasant homes on this 
beautiful campus, all made very dear to us by the 
happy associations of many years. But so it must be 
everywhere — the older making way for the younger, 
so that the work of the world shall be ever fresh and 
vigorous ; and it would be unreasonable, and only a 
selfish contention against the inevitable, if we should 
not most cordially wish for those who take our 



64 THE ADDRESSES. 

places, when we shall no longer be deemed able to fill 
them Avith sufficient credit to the University, all the 
success they can attain with the far more ample 
means to sustain them than fell to our lot during the 
larger part of our first quarter of a century. 

In return, may we not ask them to remember 
us kindly, at that next quarter-centennial, and allow 
for us at least some share of the glory for what the 
University may then have come to be, in that we 
helped to launch it on its career, and with an abiding 
faith in its success helped to carry it through a 
period in its history in all probability far more criti- 
cal, and fraught with danger to its very existence, 
than any other period ever will be. 

President Schurman said : The first speaker to-day com- 
mented on the curriculum of our University and the variety of 
the professional callings for which men are fitted here. That 
very fact created a difficulty for the Committee of Arrange- 
ments in selecting a representative of the student body, old 
students, and alumni. The speaker whom we have chosen 
has rendered distinguished services, both to his city and to the 
nation, in journalism, in politics, in education, in finance. He 
is still a leader in the world of business and a Member of Con- 
gress, — the Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix. 

MR. HENDRIX'S ADDRESS. 

Mr. President., Ladies and Gentlemen : 

An old student of the early seventies comes upon 
this scene, after an absence of twenty years, to be 
delighted and to be amazed. The Yale freshman 



MR. HENDRIX'S ADDRESS. 65 

who in his endeavors to snbdue the English lan- 
guage in a composition-exercise wrote, "The Senator 
stood speechless with amazement," was rebuked by 
his professor, who said: "My boy, always get your 
facts straight. A Senator may stand amazed, but 
speechless — never." It is not permitted to me to be 
speechless in amazement, as I view the wonderful 
progress of Cornell, but perhaps the reminiscences 
of the old days may pass in part for a speech. How 
they come back — and what a contrast! Why, I 
landed here on a freight train ! It wound its melan- 
choly way along- a geometrical diagram on yonder 
hill-side, and it seemed to be sinking deeper and 
deeper into the soft-looking valley below the further 
it went ; and, when it came to a stand-still and I 
alighted, my future college home — then two stone 
buildings — seemed not only far off, but far up. You 
can imagine the feelings of a child of the prairie, as 
he measured with his eye the distance that he had to 
climb with his feet. Of course I thought it best to 
walk on the level until I reached a point opposite the 
buildings, but this brought me to the foot of a steep 
sand-bank. My first thought was, " How am I ever 
to get up?" I literally approached Cornell on my 
hands and knees. At the top of this first terrace, an 
Ithacan peasant informed me that it was easier to 
reach Cornell through a grave-yard. When I en- 
countered the pundits at the gates holding entrance- 
examinations my next thought was, " How am I ever 
to get in ? " When I did get in, confronted by a con- 



66 THE ADDRESSES. 

dition and not by any theory, I thought, " How am I 
ever to get through ? " Later on, when some precon- 
ceived and fondly cherished scientific notions which 
I brought from the West proved unacceptable to my 
teachers, my thought was, " How am I ever to get 
out ? " The Faculty had a way of making this rea- 
sonably easy. Then I thought, " How am I ever to 
get away ? " The luxury of a railroad pass and the 
friendly loan of a ten-dollar bill enabled me to get to 
New York, where there was a budding demand for 
college men in journalism, the preference being for 
those with not too much education — not for men edu- 
cated beyond their intellects, as the Mugwumps are 
said to be. As this hill-climbing and the experience 
with all of the discomforts of Cornell in its early days 
had made me able-bodied and given me great powers 
of endurance, I was assigned to report the speeches 
of Chauncey M. Depew. I am glad to get back and 
look over these scenes again. I cau but wonder now 
that any young man came here in those early days ; 
for going to college is a serious epoch in any man's 
life. A student does not go to college like Mr. De- 
pew does nowadays, by stepping into his private car 
and being whirled along amid surroundings of com- 
fort. Oh no ! He must get his parents into a will- 
ing mood ; and in the day of the ascendancy of de- 
nominational colleges this was not so easy. Colleges 
had long tentacles over the land, drawing young men 
to them, along lines of religious, sectional, or local 
preferences. The young men who came here were 



MR. HENDRIX'S ADDRESS. 67 

accordingly of an adventurous type, earnest, self- 
centered, determined. They made up a strong body 
of young men. Some came to work, and they 
worked as best they could here while studying. The 
influences about them were democratic and helpful. 
We had the silent old Quaker founder alive then, 
and it was no unusual thing to see him among the 
boys, standing over them like a fond and anxious 
father. Andrew D. White had a friendly word for 
all who approached him, and no old student will for- 
get Goldwin Smith — a young Oxford professor who 
left the comfort and ease of a professorship at an an- 
cient seat of learning to come to the frontier life on 
the outposts of the new education in America, and 
was to all of us a great-heai'ted elder brother. He 
shared in the discomforts of the early days, but was 
the most undaunted spirit among us all. How the 
scene has changed ! Here is magic indeed. Instead 
of the small beginning, here is a luxury of equip- 
ment, — and, all about us, cathedrals of learning. 
How we old students envy the new ones and wish we 
were boys again. The children of this Alma Mater 
are scattered far and wide. I cannot assume to 
speak for them, for I bear no credentials from the 
Alumni. I am one of the half-baked, but I am all 
the more free to tell you, Mr. President, that where 
the world's work is being done, amid the stir, the 
vigor, and the activity of our industrial civilization, 
the men from Cornell are doing full duty, such as 
men do who are educated for the time in which they 



68 THE ADDRESSES. 

live, and who approach the affairs of men with the 
confidence of those whose attitude toward life as it is 
has never become warped or distorted. They cher- 
ish fondly sentiments of gratitude toward their col- 
lege and the lofty purpose which has crowned it 
from the outset. As they pass along life's path, 
achieving and conquering, they may sometimes have 
presented to them, by way of contrast, the gentle 
and affectionate favor of other colleges as they be- 
stow upon their representatives the blue ribbons of 
distinction ; but, if Cornell is the Spartan mother, 
her boys feel that she establishes a plane of self- 
respect and independence, whereon they may stand 
free to approach her either in love or reason as the 
passing years and occasions may warrant. Rest as- 
sured that sentiments worthy of manly men abide 
with those who have gone hence, endowed by the rich 
gifts which this institution bestows, and that, as the 
old Cornell students busy themselves with the affairs 
of men, the old song which itsed to wake this cam- 
pus keeps saying for them : 

" We honor tliee, Cornell, 
We honor thee, Cornell, 
While breezes blow and waters flow, 
We honor thee, Cornell. ' ' 

President Schurman said : The next exercise is the pre- 
sentation of commemorative volumes, — first to Professor Burt 
G. Wilder, on behalf of his former students, b}' Dr. Theobald 
Smith. 



DR. smith's presentation. 69 

DR. SMITH'S PRESENTATION. 
Professor Burt G. Wilder : 

The very pleasant task has been assigned me to 
present to you to-day, on the happy and successful 
close of a quarter-century of service in this univer- 
sity, the congratulations and good wishes of your 
former students. To make their expression of re- 
gard toward their teacher something more than a 
matter of mere form, this volume has been put into 
my hands to present to you. It is made up of original 
contributions to science from fifteen of your former 
pupils. Its dedication reads as follows : " To Burt 
Green Wilder, B.S., M.D., Professor of Physiology, 
Vertebrate Zoology, and Neurology in Cornell Uni- 
versity, this volume is dedicated by his former pupils 
as a testimonial of their appreciation of his unselfish 
devotion to the University, and in grateful remem- 
brance of the inspiration of his teaching and exam- 
ple." 

This dedication will leave no doubt in your mind 
concerning the character of this volume. It is what 
has been known for some time in German univer- 
sities as a Festschrift. It is a newcomer to American 
university life, and as yet without a fitting name. 

We might have couched our congratulations in 
some form which would have been of more personal 
value to you, or which would have tended to more 
display and less labor on our part, or which would 
have included as active participants a larger number 
of the 3261 students who, at one time or another, 



70 THE ADDRESSES. 

have come under your personal instruction. But we 
assumed that the form chosen would best serve our 
University and meet your cordial approval at the 
same time. We knew that the most unselfish, the 
most widely useful offering would reflect best your 
attitude toward others. Our gift is therefore one 
which, inspired by your teaching and brought to suc- 
cessful completion in contemplation of the pleasure 
and satisfaction it was to bring you, is yet of no 
more value to you than to any other person who is in 
a position to make use of its contents. 

But the lesson of unselfishness is not the one we 
intended to emphasize. This volume has a few other 
thoughts to express, which I shall try, however inad- 
equately, to voice for its authors. 

It is, first of all, a witness to the fact that orig- 
inal research has always been an integral part of 
your work. However insignificant your facilities, 
however crowded your quarters, however burdensome 
the instruction, the long list of articles, monographs, 
and books prefixed to this volume, bears ample testi- 
mony that you did not relinquish for a moment the 
development of new ideas under circumstances which 
would have discouraged many from rising above the 
level of a commonplace routine. It has been said 
that it was a fortunate thing for us that your labora- 
tories were so small and crowded, because all of your 
work was done in the presence of your pupils, and 
we could not very well escape the infection of your 
enthusiasm. This may be true, but we would not 



DR. smith's presentation. 71 

recommend therefore the old regime^ any more than 
hygiene would recommend that all the members of a 
family should live in the same room if others could 
be put at their disposal. 

In looking over the list of your publications 
(comprising over 135 separate titles) beginning with 
the year 1861 and extending into the present year, 
we notice a wide diversity of subjects which involve 
the evident desire to utilize for pure biology as well 
as for its application in medicine all new facts and 
ideas which might be of service to both the science 
and the art. We are especially pleased to note that 
in latter years your original work has been restricted 
more or less to Neurology. This, we trust, is an in- 
dication that your varied burdens are being shifted 
in part to other shoulders, and that your energies 
may be applied uninterruptedly to the most congen- 
ial subjects. 

The quarter-century which lies behind you has 
been trying in more than one direction. I need but 
point to the great change — I would almost say revo- 
lution — which has come over the attitude of the in- 
tellectual classes, during the latter years of your 
term of service, toward biological problems which 
reach out toward those of human destiny. The 
dawning conception of a process of evolution going 
on in the universe, while staring the true biologist in 
the face as an inevitable reality that had come to 
stay, was attacked by almost every other class and 
profession as inimical to the highest interests of hu- 



72 THF< ADDRESSES. 

manit3^ But how dififerent to-day. The best thought 
has surged up to the level of that of the older biolo- 
gists and even submerged it. The popularizing of 
the doctrine of evolution is being pushed earnestly 
by such men as Henry Drummond and Lyman Ab- 
bott, men of the truest Christian spirit. Your own 
course during this trying period has been entirel}^ 
consistent, highly honorable to yourself as a man, 
and very creditable to your biological instincts. 

We would not be accredited biologists if we did 
not glance for a moment into the past to note the 
causes which aided in the unfolding of those biologi- 
cal instincts that developed and made permanent in 
you the strong desire to get beyond the alwa3'-s de- 
fective knowledge of the present. We have your 
own testimony as to the guidance and close personal 
friendship of Louis Agassiz and Jeffries Wyman. It 
is not for me, of a more recent generation, to dwell 
upon the formative influence exerted by these Amer- 
ican pioneers of the now all-pervading scientific 
spirit. We know that this influence was strong, that 
it is dearly cherished, and we simply desire to pay 
tribute on this day to the most graceful ornament as 
well as the greatest power of the teacher's vocation, 
his personal influence over posterity. 

We would also gratefully recall on this occasion 
the services of those of your colleagues who have 
successfully fought with j^ou the ups and downs of 
this first quarter-century. Traces of their moulding 
and stimulating infiuence are not wanting in the 



DR. smith's presentation. 73 

pages of this volume, and we feel sure that you will 
give them full recognition. 

In this volume there is also embodied a message 
to the University. I believe that I voice the senti- 
ment of its authors when I say that a university is 
the only true place for research, and that, when this 
spirit and its fruits are absent, a university does not 
deserve the name. It is true that original investiga- 
tion may spasmodically show itself through private 
munificence or under government auspices, but the 
difficulty will always lie in the atmosphere, the envi- 
ronment. Those who devote themselves to the solu- 
tion of problems whose virtues, like those of Emer- 
son's weeds, have not yet been discovered, cannot 
hope to get light in an atmosphere befogged by a 
false utilitarianism. 

But this is not the occasion for any disquisition on 
the value of original research, or on the supposed 
antagonism between what has been popularly de- 
nominated the theoretical and the practical. To me 
the main difference seems to be that the latter minis- 
ters to the immediate present, the former to the fu- 
ture rather than to the present. Original research has 
in itself therefore all the elements of service to man- 
kind if rightly viewed. The economic progress of 
to-day is based upon the discoveries of men devoted 
to science for its own sake one or more generations 
ago. And so the unfolding of a new fact to-day may 
relieve or aid indirectly in relieving a pressing want 
of our immediate posterity. 



74 THE ADDRESSES. 

The ideals of a university are thus in entire ac- 
cord with those Avhich stimulate research. Cornell 
University has provided liberally for the mainten- 
ance of these ideals. The message of this volume is 
therefore two-fold : It transmits the sincere thanks 
of its authors to the trustees and benefactors of this 
institution for what has been done to plant the seeds 
of which this volume is the early fruitage. It fur- 
thermore embodies the earnest Avish that, as this now 
great institution expands still more, original research 
may always be regarded as its main function ; and 
that any one who comes with the true ability and the 
genuine desire to search for the truth in any direc- 
tion whatsoever, may receive a cordial welcome and 
find a comfortable and well furnished home. 

It still remains for me to put this volume into 
your hands. We hope that your critical sense will 
deal leniently with its shortcomings. Much of it is 
the outgrowth, not of leisure, bi:t of busy, preoccu- 
pied lives, and the signs of haste and incompleteness 
must be ascribed to want of that most important aid 
to original thought, time. May it add happiness to 
your life whenever you turn to its pages, and when 
you shall have reached the age of three score and 
ten we shall look for the coming of another, larger 
Jubelband to find a place by its side. 



PROI^ESSOR WILDEr'S RESPONSE. 75 

Professor Wilder responded as follows : 

PROFESSOR WINDER'S RESPONSE. 

My former student^ my later assistant^ my long-time 
friend : 

My acquaintance with this volume is but ten days 
old, but I learn that the movement for its production 
was begun in July, 1892. Here are five hundred 
pages of text, with the equivalent of thirty-eight 
plates, including an engraving by a master in the art. 

The subjects are all important. Here are repre- 
sented geology, botany, bacteriology, medicine and 
surgery, comparative anatomy, entomology, evolu- 
tion, and social science. With some of these topics my 
relation is very remote, and the honor radiating from 
this volume must fall in great degree upon my col- 
leagues and upon the University as a whole. 

Like most Cornell graduates, the contributors are 
busy men and women, fully occupied indeed with 
duties to institutions, to the state, and to the nation. 
In every case what was regarded as a labor of love has 
nevertheless been accomplished at a sacrifice of 
much needed rest and in some instances under most 
trying conditions. I assure you these sacrifices 
would not be acceptable to me but for the conviction 
that, in both intention and effect. Science and Cornell 
are glorified rather than my humble self. 

Among the contributors are artists, instructors, 
physicians, ofl&cers in government departments, pro- 
fessors in medical colleges and in universities, and a 



76 THE ADDRESSES. 

university president. One of the artists is a woman, 
highly accomplished in the drawing and engraving 
of natural history objects, a work demanding the 
difficult subordination of the artistic sense to the sci- 
entific conscience. Another woman contributes an 
article second to none in fact, philosophy, or illustra- 
tion. This paper alone refutes all assumptions as to 
the incompatibility of the feminine constitution 
with delicate manipulation, close observation, accur- 
ate delineation, clear description, logical reasoning, 
intellectual initiative, and persistent endeavor. In 
this connection, and perhaps as exemplifying the 
transmission of acquired tendencies, it may be add- 
ed that the child of this woman, the father being 
also an anatomist, when only five years old declared 
that his brain was to be given to Dr. Wilder ; it is 
more probable that he will examine mine. 

My pardonable pride on this occasion is tempered 
by an ever present realization of shortcomings in 
ability and method, although never, I think, in pur- 
pose. But there is one feature of the Anatomical 
Department upon which we may reflect with satisfac- 
tion unalloyed. There has been always mutual con- 
fidence and cordial cooperation. Never at our table 
has sat " suspicion poisoning his brother's cup." 
Bach has been kept informed of what all were doing, 
and we have never harbored that osteological bug- 
bear, a " skeleton in the closet." 

Naturally these articles have been written by 
those who like yourself have taken advanced work 



PROFESSOR HUFFCUT'S PRESENTATION. ']'] 

in the department. For the rest of the 3261 stu- 
dents whom it has been my duty and privilege to in- 
struct, I have no higher wish than that they may 
resemble you and your collaborators. For I believe 
you have not cultivated the True and the Beautiful at 
the expense of the Good. In your lives you declare 
that above all intellect is character. You are expo- 
nents of the idea that the highest function of a uni- 
versity is — without neglecting the increase and 
dissemination of knowledge — to set the world an ex- 
ample of industr}^, justice, and purity of life. 

Upon this, the silver anniversary of my union 
with Cornell University, speech seems to have been 
expected and I comply. Should I live to see the 
fiftieth return of the day, I trust there may be given 
me wisdom to maintain a golden silence, only point- 
ing to the achievements of the pupils of those who 
have made this precious book. 

President Schurman then announced the presentation by 
Professor Huffcut of his history of the University. 

PROFESSOR HUFFCUT'S PRESENTATION. 

Circumstances made me some years ago the tem- 
porary historiographer of Cornell University. What 
was then begun under a sense of obligation has 
since been continued with increasing interest and 
admiration. The fruit of these investigations I now 
place in your hands in the hope that it may ease the 



78 THE ADDRESSES. 

labors of some worthier successor. Suffer me to add 
that I rise from these studies of the history of 
Cornell impressed with the conviction that, while she 
owes much to a large body of earnest and devoted 
friends, she owes most of what she is and what she 
promises to three men, one of whom has gone to his 
reward, one of whom serves his country in a far 
distant land, and one of whom we have happily with 
us on this occasion ; — but the work of all three now 
firmly and forever established ! 

President Schurman responded : 

This useful and appropriate offering of an hon- 
ored alumnus to his Alma Mater, I accept in the 
name of the University with pride and pleasure. 

The President then added : The benediction will now be 
pronounced by the Rev. Mr. Synnott. 

THE BENEDICTION. 

May the blessing of Almighty God rest upon us 
and upon our purposes, through Jesus Christ, now 
and forever, Amen. 



THE DINNER. 



THE DINNER. 



At the close of the addresses, it benig now past one o'clock, 
the invited guests and the alumni, under the escort of the 
Trustees and Faculty of the University, made their wa}' from 
the lyibrary to the University Gymnasium, where the dinner 
was in waiting. There sat down to the table some four 
hundred persons ; and, so happy had been the forecast as to 
numbers, there were few vacant seats. On the dais, at the 
north side of the hall, were the President of the University, 
the orator of the day. Chancellor Upson and Regent McKelwa}', 
the Hon. Oscar S. Straus, Trustees Cornell, Woodford, lyord, 
Carnegie, Barnes, Synnott, Williams, Halliday, Hiscock, 
Kerr, Treman, Turner, and Francis, while the Faculty was 
represented by Professor Crane, the old students and alumni 
by the Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix and Seward A. Simons, Esq., 
and sister institutions by President Low of Columbia, Presi- 
dent Northrop of the University of Minnesota, President 
Taylor of Vassar, Chancellor Snow of the University of 
Kansas, President Hervey of St. L,awrence University, and 
President Crowell of Trinity College, N. C. 

During the meal President Schurman read to the assem- 
bled companjr this telegraphic greeting : 

St. Petersburg, Oct. 6th, 1S93. 

President Cornell University ^ Ithaca^ N. V. : 

Most hearty congratulations and best wishes. 
Andrew D. White. 



82 THE DINNER. 

This message from Ex- President White was received with 
great applause, and, at the suggestion of President Schurman, 
there was sent the following response : 

Ithaca, Oct. 7TH, 1S93. 

American Mun'ster^ St. Petersburg, Russia : 

Cornell sends heartiest greetings to her first 
President. 

Schurman. , 

Of the many greetings received from others who were 
unable to be present at the anniversary, two at least should be 
here added to that of the first President of the University. 
From Paris, General John Meredith Read, the only surviving 
member of the original Board of Trustees of Cornell Univer- 
sity, wrote : 

General Meredith Read has the honor to acknowl- 
edge the kind invitation of the Trnstees and Faculty 
of Cornell University, to attend on Friday, Satur- 
day, and Sunday, October 6th, 7th, and Sth, 1S93, 
the public exercises in celebration of the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of the opening of the Universit}'. It is 
with extreme regret that he is obliged to decline, 
owing to absence from the country. 

The Government of the University can readily 
understand the deep interest with which the only 
survivor of the ten named in the Charter of the 
University takes in its present and future welfare, 
and the justifiable pride which he feels in looking 



GENERAL READ'S LETTER. 83 

back Upon the rise and progress of sucli a magnifi- 
cent fountain of varied learning. 

Paris : 

128 Rue la Boetze, 

Chavips Elysees. 
22 September, 1893. 

And from Toronto came the following letter from Professor 
Goldwin Smith, who brought to Cornell Universitj^ as a mem- 
ber of its Faculty at the outset and for many years, an experi- 
ence as organizer and as teacher at the oldest of English 
universities which made him the most valued adviser of its 
founders : 

The Grange, 

Toronto, 
4th October, 1893. 
To 

Dr. Jacob Gould Sclmrtiian^ D.Sc, LL.D., 

President of Cornell University^ 
Ithaca : 
My dear President^ — 

My inability to be witb you on tbe twenty-fifth 
anniversary of the opening of our University is my 
second great regret. My first was that I missed by a 
few days being present at the opening itself. Mar- 
vellous is the change since the day in November, 
1868, when, coming from England, I landed at Ithaca 



84 THE DINNER. 

and was taken by our Founder to the hill now 
crowned by the numerous and stately buildings of 
the University. The hill bore at that time, if I 
recollect aright, only a single finished building. The 
dulness of a cloudy November morning added to the 
crude and unpromising aspect of the scene. But 
behind the clouds was the sun, in the brightness of 
which we now rejoice. In those days we lived a good 
deal on hope, which these days have gloriously 
fulfilled. 

Of those connected with the Universit}^ who stood 
on the hill twenty-five years ago not many are left. 
Our Founder sleeps in honour, and most of those 
who originally shared his enterprise are dead or have 
gone elsewhere. But some of our original staff 
remain and will be with you on this occasion to tell 
the story of the struggle and success. One who will 
not be with you personally, as he is serving the state 
on a distant mission, will be present to the thoughts 
of all. Any one who remembers the early days will 
say that by his self-devotion and his generoiis effort, 
not less than by his munificence, Andrew White 
earned the title of a co-founder. Personally I have 
special reason to be grateful to him, since I owe to 
him my connection with Cornell. 

Mr. Cornell's original idea, that of combining 
manual labour with study, so that the student, while 
working with his brain, might sustain himself with 
the labour of his hands, proved not to be feasible on 
a large scale. The fund of nervous energ}'. will not 



PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH'S LETTER. 85 

meet both demands. But we owe perhaps to the 
attempt and the character which it impressed on us 
an industrious and frugal race of students. 

It has been my duty as a Lecturer on the Consti- 
tutional History of England to show American 
students that their country has a history, though 
that history commenced on the other side of the 
Atlantic, as the history of the Mother Country her- 
self commenced on the other side of the German 
Ocean. Let us not withhold our debt of gratitude 
from the past. If in treating of English History 
before Americans I have ever contravened American 
tradition, perhaps I have not thereby done much 
harm. Of the liberties, as we call them, though per- 
haps they should rather be called re-distributions of 
political power, which by all these revolutions and 
convulsions the world has won, some must be deemed 
still to be on their trial. But liberty of opinion is 
clear gain ; it is the surest pledge of progress, and it 
means freedom from the yoke of popular prejudice 
as well as from that of intolerant laws. 

An Englishman and an Oxford ex-Professof resi- 
dent in Canada and holding a Chair in an American 
University seems to be at a point of junction. The 
old quarrel is now very old, and the feelings of all 
good and sensible Englishmen and Americans 
towards each other betoken the moral reunion of our 
race. For the race at large, scattered as it is over 
the world, more than moral reunion seems impossi- 
ble. For the two sections of the race which dwell 



86 THE DINNER. 

together on this continent nature seems to design a 
closer bond, if statesmanship will do its part. A 
united continent shutting out war and devoted to 
industry and progress appears at least a rational as 
well as a generous aspiration. But aspiration be- 
longs to the young hearts which will fill your Hall 
rather than to those who like myself have come to 
the end of their days. 

May your celebration be all that you can desire, 
and may it open an era if possible of increased pros- 
perity and honour for Cornell. 

Yours very truly, 

GoLDwiN Smith. 



The toasts and speakers announced for the dinner were as 
follows : 



1. The University: 

{a) The Trustees, 

{b) The Faculty, 

2. The Commonwealth, 

Hon. Chauncey M. Depew 

3. Sister Institutions of the East, 

President Seth I^ow 

4. The Earlier Students, 

Hon. D. H. McMillan 

5. Theosophy and Education, 

General A. C. Barnes 



Hon. Henry W. Sage 
Professor T. F. Crane 



THE TOASTS. 87 

6. Pra6lical Education, 

Andrew Carnegie 

7. Sister Institutions of the West, 

President Cyrus Northrop 

8. The University and the Press, 

St. Clair McKelway 

9. The Education of Women, 

President James M. Taylor 

10. The College Graduate and the Man of Affairs, 

Hon. Oscar S. Straus 

11. The Eater Alumni. 

Seward A. Simons, A.B., '79 

In the absence of Mr. Sage, the response on behalf of 
" The Trustees " was made by the Hon. Samuel D. Halliday ; 
and the Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix took the place of Senator 
McMillan as the spokesman of ' ' The Earlier Students. ' ' 

It was nearly seven in the evening when the dinner 
reached an end, and the guests scattered for the night. 



THE SERMON 



THE SERMON. 

At eleven on the morning of Sunday, the 8th, the mem- 
bers of the University, with their guests, again gathered at 
the Armory, to listen to the anniversary sermon by the Bishop 
of Albany, the Right Reverend William Croswell Doane, 
D.D. Oxon., LE-D. Cantab., Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 
sity of the State of New York. 

BISHOP DOANE'S SERMON. 

Ephesians IV, 17 : This I say therefore, a7id testify hi the 
Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the 
vanity of their mind. 

Certainly not the least striking feature, in this 
earnest exhortation of the apostle to his Ephesian 
converts, is its perpetual reiteration of complement- 
ary truths ; by the observance of vi^hich, only, can 
any real completeness of character be attained. It is 
not merely a series of prohibitions and a succession 
of negative statements ; but they are accompanied 
by a statement of positive duties, and a set of definite 
commands. It seems to me that this may well be 
taken to be the essential principle of any true rule of 
life. The kind of character that is produced by the 
mere avoidance of wrong is one-sided and imperfect, 
to say the least of it ; and, from the very first out- 
going of the law, God's revelation to man of duty. 



92 THE SERMON. 

not merely says " thou shalt not," but begins really 
witb " thou shalt." All that goes to make back-bone 
in character consists in positiveness. The prevailing 
habit of our day, the sort of boneless and inverte- 
brate attitude toward truth and duty, grows out of 
this wrong method of facing facts. If you begin at 
the very beginning, you will find that the apostle 
urges his people to energy and activity in the Chris- 
tian life. He does not say " that ye henceforth walk 
;/(9/'," but " that ye henceforth iva/k^ not as other 
Gentiles walk;" implying, to say the least of it, 
what is absolutely true, that the same hot and eager 
pursuit of their old pleasures, "lasciviousness,unclean- 
ness, and corruptness," ought to mark the Christian 
life and character ; eager and earnest for good, as 
they had been earnest and eager for evil. The next 
statement is stronger and clearer still. They must 
"put off the old man," and the^i^ being "renewed in 
the spirit of their mind," they must " put on the 
new ; " and this is the cardinal and central statement 
of all. Think of it in the illustration that is so 
familiar to us all. The dail}' routine, with which we 
deal with our physical bodies, consists, one may say, 
in putting off for the purpose of putting on : the 
change of dress from day to night and then again 
from night to day ; or finer still, the illustration of 
that statement which St. Paul makes elsewhere in 
his teaching about the great fact and power of the 
resurrection, that we are to be, not merely " un- 
clothed," stripped of all that is merely mortal and 



BISHOP DOANE'S SERMON. 93 

poor, of the flesh which clothes the better nature of 
the inner man, — but are to be " clothed upon " with 
that new resurrection body, identical in one way, so 
far as individual conditions and individual recogni- 
tions are concerned, but "a body of glory," a body 
in which we shall wake up after His likeness and be 
satisfied with it. We are too much content with put- 
ting off the bad habits, — which are the same thing as 
clothes, — and leaving ourselves naked of any posi- 
tive virtue and unclothed with any real grace. Be- 
yond this, if one takes the simple application with 
which St. Paul develops this idea, it will work itself 
out in practical suggestions of undoubted value to 
every life. " Put away lying." Why ? In order to 
speak truth, with plainness and courage and posi- 
tiveness. The thief is not only " not to steal," but 
he is to set his hands, which had been used for the 
base purpose of dishonesty, to honest labour, not 
merely for labour's sake, but that "he may have to 
give to him that needeth." The mouth is not only 
to be cleansed from all corrupt communications, pro- 
fane, impure, unkind, untrue ; but it is to set itself 
to the good speech of edifying words which " may 
minister grace unto the hearer." And in like man- 
ner bitterness must give place to kindness one to 
another^ and wrath and anger and clamour and evil- 
speaking must not only be rooted out ; but the heart 
on which they lay like stones, and out of which they 
grow like thorns, must be softened until it is tender. 
And when all malice has been put away, we must 



94 THE SERMON. 

learn that other and greater lesson of the active 
virtue of forgivingness, " forgiving one another even 
as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." Further 
than this, I do not desire to work out the whole of 
this great passage of the Word of God, but only to 
lay down underneath the teaching, which it is my 
privilege to give to you this morning, this principle, 
of evil overcome, of sin given up, of vice abandoned, 
in order that goodness and holiness and virtue may 
be attained, as lying at the root and being the founda- 
tion of all efforts at the making of character ; which 
I take to be the true purpose of the training of every 
man. It is all well enough to have gathered into bot- 
tles, and put upon shelves, and labeled with the utmost 
accuracy, the different drugs which have been first 
compounded by the aid of chemistry ; but, after all, 
the value only comes, when men have learned to take 
the separate elements so gathered and so marked, 
and put them together into something that shall 
minister to the healing of disease, and the getting 
back of strength and health instead. And so the 
only true effect of any real education is, not to have 
sorted out and pigeon-holed and marked, either in a 
commonplace book or in the separate compartments 
of the mind, this or that formula of science or of 
philosophy, this or that fact of history, this or that 
phrase of literature ; but to have taken away from 
here such portions of learning as may become means 
and ministries for higher things ; and then to use 
them for the , great purpose which the Founder of 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 95 

this University had in mind, the training and the 
preparation of men and women, for the work in life 
" into which it shall please God to call them." 

Taking the sentence, " sententia," to be what it 
certainly ought to be, the expression of a thought, 
and measuring size by substance and not by super- 
ficial extent, I do not think it is too much to say, that 
few larger sentences have ever been written, few 
larger thoughts ever conceived, than the sentence 
and the thought expressed by the far-seeing man 
who established Cornell University as "an institu- 
tion where atty person might find instruction in any 
study." Large, it seems to me, the sentence and the 
thought are, because of their comprehetisiveness ; 
not only their comprehension of numbers of men, 
but their comprehension of the width of study : '"''Any 
person in any study." Coming as I am to-day to 
speak at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the found- 
ing of this University, I may perhaps claim that I 
stand here in two relations ; partly, as one, a large 
part of whose life has been given to the practical 
business of education ; and partly, as honoured by 
the State of New York by a position in the Board of 
Regents of its University. So that, when your 
President gave me the opportunity of sharing in the 
thoughts and the thanksgivings of to-day, I was very 
glad to avail myself of it ; both to bring to you the 
greeting of the Regents ; and to assure you of the 
sympathy of an educator, whose last venture dates 
from the same year in which Cornell University was 



96 THE SERMON. 

founded. In 1869 I was consecrated to the Episco- 
pate, and began instantly, as a pressing part of my 
official duty, the founding of St. Agnes' School. And 
in 1869, that wise and practical mind whose name 
finds its highest among many honours, and its ten- 
derest among many memories, in the University 
which he first created and then saved, brought to the 
focus of its beginning the Institution which has so 
abundantly justified the end of its founding and the 
wisdom of its plan. It will be enough for me, I 
think, to say that in my various means of intercourse 
with the University, and the men who have made it, 
and are making it still, I have come more and more 
to feel, with every visit here and with every evidence 
of the growth and advancement of its work, that its 
brief history is brilliant, and its long future full of 
noble promise for the best interests of learning. 

It would be neither honest to myself nor just to 
you, if I did not frankly say, at the start, that I have 
the strongest convictions of the grave necessity and 
absolute importance of definite religious teaching, in 
anything that goes to make the complete education 
of a human being. I feel this, not merely because of 
my position as a religious teacher, nor merely 
because I must represent the uniform belief and prac- 
tice of the Holy Catholic Church ; but because it 
seems to me that it inheres in the actual make-up of 
every human being, that no education is proportion- 
ate, which does not take hold of each distinct and 
separate element in human nature. The overween- 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 97 

ing attention to athletic sports, at the expense of 
proper cultivation of the mind, or the absorption in 
intellectual pursuits which burns not only the 
midnight oil, but burns the oil all out of physical 
force and mental vigour, are both of them to be con- 
demned and avoided ; not merely because of their 
evil results, but because they are developing one 
part of a man at the expense and to the neglect of 
the other. And in the same line of reasoning, it 
seems to me impossible to accept the man as an edu- 
cated man, whose will is left untrained, whose con- 
science is inactive, whose mind is not led to contem- 
plate the great mysteries of revealed truth ; and who 
is not reminded that even his physical powers are 
given him not merely for digging and delving in the 
earth, but for the devotion of those powers to the 
glory of God. In an ideal and Utopian condition of 
society ; if Christianity were undivided ; if we agreed 
among ourselves upon even the fundamental princi- 
ples of the Christian Faith ; if there were only two 
ecclesiastical systems to be dealt with, namely, 
Roman Catholicism, and what is called Protestant- 
ism or evangelical Christianity, this matter could be 
very readily dealt with. Because each one of these 
two great lines of thought, the one of which is based 
upon the tyranny of authority and the other upon 
the license of individualism (whereas really individ- 
ualism is liberty under law and not license, and 
authority is a co-ordinate matter, a limited monarchy, 
a constitutional government) ; if, I say, we had only 



98 THE SERMON. 

these two opposing principles before us, the matter 
could be easily arranged by letting Roman Catbolics 
educate tbeir own children in their own peculiar 
views of religious belief, and letting other Chris- 
tians train their children, in their way. But no such 
state of things exists or is likely to exist. Some- 
times I think there will be a unification of all the 
Protestant bodies against the political, educational, 
and ecclesiastical assertions and assu.mptions of 
Rome. But he is a bold dreamer who hopes for 
such inherent unity in work and worship, as will 
enable the gathering together of all un-Roman chil- 
dren into common religious schools. I believe, then, 
that each religious body is bound to provide for the 
complete training in all matters, moral and spiritual, 
of its own children ; and in the next place that the 
Christian Church, using it in its largest meaning, 
is bound to supplement, in all the various ways in 
which it can be supplemented, the training that is 
given in non-religious institutions. I should be 
thankful if here, under the shadow and wing of this 
great University, and under the shadow and wing of 
every great University of America, the Church of 
which I am a minister could have its own Hall, its 
own Chapel, its own religious teachers, carefully 
selected, to develop and present the educational sys- 
tem of the Church ; while at the same time the stu- 
dents in these Halls could get the enormous advantage 
of access to the lecture-rooms and libraries of the 
larger Institutions. Failing of that, and failing of 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 99 

any ability to meet that great demand for instruction, 
which stirred the mind of Ezra Cornell, and certainly 
must stir the mind of every thoughtful and intelli- 
gent citizen, it seems to me the duty of Christian 
men and Christian Churches, to recognize the value, 
and advance the interests of the whole system of 
public education, beginning with the Common School 
and ending with the University ; and to be diligent 
in season and out of season, in Church and family, 
in Sunday-schools and Christian organizations of 
every sort, to consecrate for God the learning and the 
acquirements which are obtained in schools, that bear 
no special religious name and have no special relig- 
ious influence or intention. 

I feel that I am authorized, and I think it is im- 
portant, to repudiate the impression that a school 
without definite religious teaching is therefore what 
is commonly called a godless or irreligious school. 
The report of your last President for the academic 
year 1891-92 contains a clear and striking statement 
in regard to this matter, which I was glad to see and 
which I am glad to quote. 

"I have always regarded it as a mark of special 

wisdom that in the organization of this University 

provision was made to secure its perpetual exemption 

from political and religious partisanship. The clause 

in the original charter providing that ' at no time 

shall a majority of the Board of Trustees be of one 

religious sect or of no religious sect ' would seem to 

indicate that, while, on the one hand, the University 
LofC. 



lOO , THE SERMON. 

could never drift into the control of any one denom- 
ination, on the other, it was forced to have a funda- 
mental bias in favour of Christianity. While this 
interpretation is not inconsistent with perfect free- 
dom on the part of teachers and pupils, it is essen- 
tial to a widespread confidence on the part of a 
Christian community. While, therefore, there has 
been a perfect religious freedom in every department 
of the University, I have always regarded it as 
strictly within the legitimate scope of my duties as 
President, to encourage in every way practicable the 
voluntary religious activities of professors and stu- 
dents." 

There certainly can be no question of two things : 
first, that there can be no religious education which 
is not based upon the teaching of positive and defi- 
nite dogma and truth. The theory that education is 
made religious by the reading of a few verses of the 
Bible at the opening of the school day, or that the 
schools have become irreligious by the exclusion of 
the Bible from them, I have felt for many years to be 
a great mistake. I believe it would have been wiser, 
years ago, to have yielded to the insincere demand 
which was made for the exclusion of the Bible from 
the public schools ; because it would have removed 
at the same time even the apparent justice of the 
claim, on the part of any single religious body, to 
use the public tax moneys, raised for purposes of 
public education, in their special interest. And be- 
cause it stands, I think, to reason, that veneering. 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. IOI 

even with the costliest and choicest of foreign wood, 
can never make the plain pine stuff on which it is 
put anything but plain pine. On the other hand, 
while a secular school could not be made religious by 
the reading of the Bible, nor irreligious by its exclu- 
sion, I believe it to be also true that the underlying 
principles of national morality, to which Washington 
alluded in his farewell address, and which must be 
taught of course in all educational institutions, must 
be based upon general religious principles, as the 
only real motive to the practice of morality. While, 
therefore, strictly speaking, religion can not be 
taught, and while, as a result from this conclusion, 
the authorized teachers of religion must be most 
careful to supplement the imperfect education which 
trains merely the mind, it seems to me that no ethics 
or morals, or philosophy, or history, or science can 
be taught in any way, except on the underlying 
basis of general religious truth. Christianity is the 
atmosphere in which we think and speak and teach 
and learn and live. It is the influence which has 
substituted courtesy and consideration for the intoler- 
ance, or the worse thing, mere toleration, of the He- 
brew people ; and it is the power which gives to the 
agnostic the liberty of his false prophesying and the 
security and sanctity of his property, his person, and 
his home. And we have the right to claim, that 
with all the necessary avoidance of the technical 
teaching of definite truth, there shall be the abso- 
lute prohibition of any effort, either directly or indi- 



I02 THE SERMON. 

rectly, to sap the instinctive and natural tendency of 
a man's mind to belief. Dr. Strong, in his remarka- 
ble book, " Our Country," quotes Plutarck's famous 
saying, " There never was a city of atheists. You 
may travel all over the world and you may find cities 
without walls, without king, without mint, without 
theatre or gymnasium, but you will nowhere find a 
city without a god, without prayer, without oracle, 
without sacrifice. Sooner may a city stand without 
foundations than a city without belief in the gods." 

Having said this much, I beg to throw myself 
with all the earnestness I am capable of into the estab- 
lishment of two things : first, to assert the bounden 
duty of the State to rescue all its citizens from the 
misery of ignorance, which is the inevitable mother 
of vice ; and secondly to press home upon the minds 
of the young men to whom it is my privilege and 
responsibility to speak to-day, the debt which their 
nature as God made it, and their opportunities as 
God gives them, lay upon them, to learn the duties, 
and fit themselves to discharge the duties, of Chris- 
tian citizenship in a. Christian State. It is better to 
face the fact that, and the reason why, the State is 
obliged not only to establish common schools and 
support them by a compulsor}- tax, but also to com- 
pel the attendance of children in them. And the 
basis of the whole argument rests, it seems to me, at 
its foundation, upon drawing the distinction between 
what we are very fond of talking of, namely the 
rights of citizens, and the dtities. both of citizens and 



BISHOP doane's sermon. 103 

of tlie State. I do not mean to make too sweeping a 
statement as to rights. There are certain things 
which are called rights, inherent in man. The three 
great elements in the Declaration of Independence, 
" life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," may in 
a way be called the rights of men. That is to say, 
they are the things which God gives them of His 
goodness and which no government has a right to 
take away. But the ground and reason for popular 
and universal education is not the 7-ight of the citi- 
zen, but the duty of the State to itself. It must pro- 
tect its own existence, and the life and liberty and 
happiness of its people, by providing against the 
brutality which belongs to ignorance. And it can 
only do this, by establishing Common Schools, that 
is schools for all, and by compelling the attendance 
of its children in them. In a way it is true — and I 
believe we ought to be more than we are on our 
guard against extravagance and excess — that only a 
limited amovmt of education is necessary to accom- 
plish this end ; that it would be sufficient to ground 
all children in the elements of education, and to let 
what lies beyond that take care of itself. I am not 
sure that we are not in danger of risking the stabil- 
ity and usefulness of our public system of education, 
by allowing it to get into the higher regions of a 
somewhat sentimental theory. I am quite sure, that 
in certain cases and in certain ways the free provi- 
sion of an almost compulsory system of higher edu- 
cation has worked and will work harm. The child of 



I04 THE SERMON. 

ordinary capacity, passed on as a matter of course 
from one school to another, to learn all departments 
of knowledge, which it is capable neither of accept- 
ing or appreciating, brings a charge upon the State 
with no adequate result or return. The over-education 
of children whose lot in life is likely to lie among 
what are called the industrial pursuits, sometimes 
unfits the character for contentment and the cheerful 
undertaking of the duties of their state of life. It 
seems to me that we ought to guard, by the insist- 
ence of careful and thorough examination, against 
the idea that every child who has gone through the 
primary school must necessarily pass on to the High 
School and the University. Sifting, I believe, is 
needed, not for the first entrance into any, but for 
every exit from every grade of our schools. Other- 
wise we are wasting time and money and educating 
people into unfitness for their work in life, and dis- 
content with their position. But I am very clear, 
that with the broad and splendid opportunities that 
open in a country like ours, for everybody, no matter 
where he begins, it must be true that every child who 
can receive and use it, ought to have the opportunity 
of receiving from the State the very highest and 
completest education that can be given. And there- 
fore not only this University here, and the High 
School everywhere, but where there is not time for 
these the system which the Regents have so warmly 
endorsed, of what is miscalled "university exten- 
sion," is the highest wisdom for the State of New 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 105 

York and for the great Republic in which she holds 
so honorable a place. Let us have no uncertain 
mind, and speak with no uncertain voice, about the 
first principle, that the State must for its own preser- 
vation reclaim and rescue every child from igno- 
rance ; and open to every citizen every opportunity for 
learning which he shall prove himself able to 
receive. 

And so I pass to consider the question of the 
duties of Christian citizens to a Christian State. 
With all my heart I thank God, that, by the very 
essential principles of the organization of this gov- 
ernment, there is no possible complication between 
Church and State. I should be as sorry to see the 
■Church established here, as I should be sorry, for the 
sake of the State of Old England, to see the Church 
dis-established there. But while we rejoice in the 
entire freedom from all state control in ecclesiastical 
matters, and while we are bound to repudiate, come 
from what quarter it will, any attempt at ecclesiasti- 
cal interference in state matters, I do not think I 
need be at any pains to argue the position, that the 
State in America is Christian. In the first place, 
Christianity is only the other and higher name for 
civilization. Even the mere dreams of Christ among 
the higher heathen of the old time, and the clear 
prophecy of him among the Hebrew people, were all 
that gave its tinge and tone to even the imperfect 
civilization of Hebrew, Roman, and Greek. And 
where the nobler, truer civilization is, it is only the 



Io6 THE SERMON. 

under side and human name for Christianity. It is 
the Lord Christ, claiming the kingdoms of the world 
for His own ; imperfectly, as I believe, imless He 
stands clearly recognized and known, in the familiar 
lineaments and outlines of the Catholic Creed ; but 
yet plainly enough and powerfully enough, wherever 
He is known, or His name is named at all. He is in 
the midst of, and he is the maker of everything that 
we value, of liberty, of society, of home-life, of the 
dignity of womanhood, of the reverence for child- 
hood, of the care of the sick and the poor, of the 
sanctity of oaths, of the stability of government. 
And the more plainly and the more perfectly he is 
known and recognized, the more perfect and complete 
the civilization is. 

Apart from this inherent principle, there are the 
very highest and wisest American authorities for the 
statement that this government is based upon Chris- 
tianity. Chief Justice Story sa3'S that " Christianity 
is part of the common law, from which it seeks the 
sanction of its rights and b}' which it endeavors to 
regulate its doctrine." And our great constitutional 
interpreter, Daniel Webster, says " there is nothing 
we may look for with more certainty than the gen- 
eral principle that Christianity is part of the law of 
the land." And if civilization is Christianity, if the 
civitas is Christian, then it must be that the true 
civis, the complete citizen, must be Christian too. 
To claim and reclaim for Him the humanity which 
He lifted by lowering Himself to enter into it, is the 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 107 

supreme obligation and the splendid opportunity of 
every American. We have been living for five and 
twenty years in dangerous times ; times of enormous 
material prosperity, when the great wave of recuper- 
ation from the disaster and distress of the civil war 
has risen to the flood tide, of such accumulation of 
wealth, such absorption in the hot haste to get rich, 
such discoveries in applied science, such opening of 
avenues for making money, as are rapidly leading us 
to gross materialism — to the worship of the calf of 
gold, to a belief in the omnipotent ability of wealth 
to secure happiness and satisfy the whole nature of 
man. It must be that the same elements are latent 
and lurking, which, in the sad surprise of a sudden 
call for the preservation of the Union, made armed 
men leap like the fabled phalanx from the teeth 
which Cadmus sowed. What we need is the call to 
arms, the consciousness of truth, the summons to 
defend the right. And all these are really sounding 
in your ears. When you have learned the lesson, 
that the selfish life is the ignoble life, — that every 
talent hidden in a napkin, no matter how clean the 
name of the napkin may be, is really soiled by being 
buried in the dirt, — you will begin to look for the 
place and the way in which your life is to be spent 
for the advancement of your fellow-men. Next to, 
and part of, the great and ruling principle of the 
love of God, comes, it seems to me, the principle 
which is only its complement, that of loyalty to 
country. It is quite unpardonable, that because there 



Io8 THE SERMON. 

is no one incarnate, personified, presentation of the 
principle of loyalty, that we should lack it in our 
great republic. I remember the thrill, which stirred 
me to the depths of my nature, when, at the opening 
of the Imperial Institute in London last year, I 
heard Her Majesty, the Queen, as she^sat crownless 
and undistinguished except by the extreme simplicity 
of dress from anybody in that great multitude, say 
at the end of her speech, in a voice which filled the 
room and stirred the hearts of all who were present, " I 
hope that the opening of this Imperial Institute will 
advance the unity and the loyalty of viy empire." I 
am here to claim, that, by the very principles of this 
republic, every citizen of America has the right not 
only, but the duty, to claim with an equal conscious- 
ness of definite right that the United States of Amer- 
ica is his empire. The famous saying of the great 
martyred President, that the principle of America 
was "a government of the people, by the people, for 
the people," means this, and it means more than this. 
Because it means, in the first place, that the people 
are to be governed in order that they may be govern- 
ors. And ' the people ' stand simply for the accumu- 
lation of individuals ; and if they are to be governed 
it must be by the attainment of self-government on 
the part of every separate one. The problem which 
faces us to-day is intensely the problem of the people, 
because the great dangers of the Republic grow out 
of the fact that we are in that process, which makes 
even boa-constrictors sleepy and indifferent, of 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. 109 

attempting to digest, into tlie body politic, an enor- 
mous mass of alien substance. Tbe foreign immigra- 
tion into America, which first crowds and then con- 
trols our cities, and in that way by sheer brute force 
of numbers controls the country and the towns, is 
under our existing conditions a perpetual menace. 
Alien in religion, in training, in habit of thought, 
swinging, under the old pendulum law, from the 
extreme of tyranny, both civil and ecclesiastical, to 
the extreme of license in belief and life, they are 
nevertheless, in many of the greatest cities of the 
country, the governing majority of the population. 
I am not a believer in restricted immigration ; and, 
when it is applied to the exclusion of the Chinese 
exclusively, it seems to me a violation both of Chris- 
tian law and Christian duty, and of the fundamental 
principles of the government. There are far worse 
elements, which our present laws invite to enter our 
Republic, than the " heathen Chinese." And if we 
can establish a quarantine which will keep out the 
plague-spot, the escaped criminals and convicts, the 
ignorant, the idle, the vicious, the scum and outcast 
of the world, we shall have done a wise thing. But 
the point, I am sure, of chief protection and chief 
importance is to break down the theory of the wis- 
dom of the rapidity of naturalization. It is a diffi- 
cult thing to make a citizen, and it ought to take 
more time. You and I, native born, have to wait for 
one and twenty years to attain an age not only of 
personal but of national discretion, before we are 



no THE SERMON. 

trusted with tlie responsibilities of citizensliip. And 
it seems to me a defiance of justice and of common 
sense, to make a brief residence, witli a careless and 
casual oatb, a substitute for our long years of train- 
ing and our lifelong associations witli the birtbrigbt 
of our freedom. I should be thankful if America 
would once rise to the fact that she will welcome to 
the abundant opportunities of liberty and of labour 
all who are disposed to come ; that she will keep 
them strongly within the control of the constitu- 
tional principles of her government ; that she will 
protect them in the discharge of their duties and 
assure to them the possession of their natural rights ; 
but that she will give to them the privilege of shar- 
ing in the administration of the government, only 
when they have been long enough here to have 
unlearned the foreign habits of thought and life, and 
have come of age, have come to an American major- 
ity, come to be real Americans, in thought and life 
and feeling and affection and responsibility. I can 
not see why twenty-one years, if it is not too long for 
a native born American to become a full citizen, is an 
hour too long to convert a foreigner into an Ameri- 
can. There is a story told of an election held in 
Cincinnati, at which three foreigners, a German, a 
Scandinavian, and a Dane, declined to allow a native 
born American citizen to vote because he could not 
produce his naturalization papers. I hope the time 
is coming when three American citizens will stand 
at every poll, and, according to law, forbid the votes 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. Ill 

of any who are not naturalized, — not b}^ naturaliza- 
tion papers, but by training and steeping in the 
atmosphere of our republican principles. It rests 
with you, I am quite sure, young men, to see to it 
that the whole thought of citizenship is illustrated 
and enforced in your lives. 

I believe that what we need to learn more and 
more is a sense of the dignity of labour ; that idle- 
ness is an ignoble thing ; that work, so far from be- 
ing part of the curse and consequence of evil, was 
the iirst privilege that was given to man when he 
stood freshly created in the image of God ; that the 
only leisure class in America, as an American 
woman once said, are what we call tramps. There 
are two things to be remembered. In the first place, 
that there is labour which leaves no mark of hard- 
ness on the hands ; labour of brain, and heart, and 
soul ; labour of care and anxiousness and responsi- 
bility ; labour that comes often to those who seem to 
the shallow conception of ignorance to be the lei- 
surely people in the world. I mean the men of 
wealth, upon whose judgment in the administration 
of their great possessions rests in large degree the 
prosperity and safety of their fellow men. This late 
financial crisis has brought to the fore the fact, that 
the bankers and business men of America, weighed 
down with the tremendous sense of the trusts they 
are administering for others, have had to bear the 
heaviest brunt of the burden that such crises impose 
upon men ; and I believe that you and I have need to 



112 THE SERMON. 

recognize, witli unreserved thankfulness and with 
great pride, how they have come, many of them with 
loss of personal possessions, clean and unscathed 
from all dishonour or unfaithfulness to trust. 

To those of us whose line of labour lies in some- 
thing beside manual toil, there must come home the 
sense of the great need of higher standards in the 
professions. No matter what the calling may be, 
theology, law, medicine, engineering, architecture, 
mining, anything, the man who enters it is bound to 
realize that if he seeks merely some selfish and per- 
sonal gain he is degrading the profession which he 
has entered ; while, on the other hand, he is help- 
ing and ennobling mankind, advancing civilization, 
adorning and building up the State if he mines hon- 
estly, — if he builds true and honest houses, — if he 
argues his causes with true deference to equity as well 
as to the technicalities of law, — if he avoids the 
secrecy and sham of quackery, — if he preaches and 
lives the truth. Set up your standards and set them 
high, and then live up to them, not for your own 
sakes merely, but that in this way you may do your 
duty as Christian citizens in a Christian state. 

Nor, I think, may we be unmindful of the fact 
that this same dignity of labour and this same duty 
of honesty about it needs to be impressed upon Avhat 
are commonly called the industrial classes. It is one 
of the painful and anxious facts of our time, that the 
best bone and muscle hastens from the country to 
the city, and leaves fields untilled and farms deserted. 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. II3 

that it may crowd into what is too often the un- 
healthy stimulus of an anxious and uncertain city 
life. It is part of the honour of the intention and 
of the accomplishment of this University, that it 
tends to advance and elevate the dignity and impor- 
tatice especially of agriculture. While we are bound 
to insist that men do work, whose implements are 
others than spades and ploughs, we are also bound to 
insist that, since the first man was set in the garden 
to till it and dress it, there is no more honorable 
occupation than that which sets itself to wring from 
the reluctant earth harvests for the comfort of man- 
kind ; and that there is no greater opportunity of 
service to America and to the world, than in the en- 
largement and improvement of the crop-bearing por- 
tions of our splendid inheritance. 

Indeed, there is a sort of sublime opportunity of 
restitution in the cultivation of the ground. The 
groans and travail of creation until now, the thorns 
and briers which cumber and cui'se the earth, are the 
reflection, on material nature, of the sin of its lord. 
What better service can man do, redeemed him- 
self from the curse by the sweat and blood of the 
second Adam, than to rescue and reclaim for gracious 
harvests the waste places and the weedy places of 
the earth ? It is our share in, and our complement of 
the Lord's redemption of the world. 

And all the while what is to be the aim and the 
ambition of your work ? Be careful of this, my 
friends. There is no more searching statement in 



114 THE SERMON. 

all the Master's utterances than this, " They have 
their reward." The people who give alms to be seen 
of men, the people who fast and pray with long faces 
and the repetition of long prayers where men can 
see them, and the people who look only to Him that 
seeth in secret, of all these it is true " they have 
their reward." That is to say, what a man gets de- 
pends ixpon what he works for. High standards, 
high aims, high ambitions, set these before you from 
the start. Money, if you will, but not for its mere 
having; political place, if you will, but not for self- 
seeking ; literary reputation, if you will, but not for 
mere popularity. 

Every faculty, every endowment, every attain- 
ment, every advancement, to the true man is for 
some further step and for some higher end. Every- 
thing that is gained is to be used not merely to gain 
more of the same kind, but to gain something better 
than it is by the use of it. 

Highest of all aims is the advancement of the 
glory of God, the spreading of His Kingdom on the 
earth, bringing men into obedience and allegiance to 
Him ; and this is not merely vagueness and vapidity 
of words, because God's highest glory is the fact 
that He seeks the happiness of the creatures whom 
He has made ; and we shall serve Him best and best 
promote His glory when we set ourselves, after the 
pattern of His incarnate Son, to the service of our 
fellow men. 



BISHOP DOANE'S sermon. II5 

The speech of to-day is naturally and necessarily 
set in a more serious and soberer tone than the 
"thoughts that breathed" in "words that burned," 
yesterday ; for the preacher has to deal with deeper 
truths and in more solemn ways. Yesterday was the 
day of recollections. This is the day of resolutions. 
And what recollections they were, — of a great faith, 
a noble purpose, an irresistible persistence, an un- 
conquerable energy, an inextinguishable hope ; of 
such a growth as staggers us, in even that fractional 
part of results which figures can compute, till an 
income of more than half a million of dollars enables 
one hundred and fifty scholars to teach two thousand 
young men, in noble buildings furnished with the 
most perfect appliances that gracious gifts and wise 
administration can secure ; recollections of names 
that neither patriotism nor grateful affection will let 
die, Cornell and Sage, Sibley and McGraw, White 
and Gold^Yin Smith and Adams, and, not least, 
Ostrander, whose name lives in the avenue of his 
elms ; men who have had the rare power not only to 
found, but to build on and add to other men's founda- 
tions, content to let the whole sum of their service 
and spending gather about the name of the Founder ; 
of whom it is true, that he is not less honoured in 
the University that he founded, than in the friends 
he found ; recollections not only of foundation and 
accumulation but of the administration of a great 
trust with that splendid unselfishness which watches 
and cares for capital from which no personal benefit 



Il6 THE SERMON. 

accrues, in the spirit that exceeds the law, by loving 
one's neighbour better than one's self. 

These are the recollections which are your inher- 
itance, young men, to-day. Respondete natalibus ! 

What shall be done with them ? They are too 
precious to be treated as mere mummied memories 
of a dead past. They are too alive with love and 
zeal and energy, to be arranged like fossils on an 
archaeological shelf. They are too enduring to evap- 
orate in the echoes of your College Song : 

"Hail ! all hail, Cornell !" 

The noblest past has no value but as it passes 
through the smelting of an eager present, into the 
coinage of a finer future. Birthrights are worse 
than nothing if they do not become the life-rights of 
their inheritor. 

Take, then, the great recollections of this silver 
wedding of a good name with a good cause, and turn 
them into the stern resolves : to make your lives as 
theirs were, who have been making your life here, 
earnest and helpful, strong in faith and hope and 
love, unselfish and true and real, 

' ' Not afraid to dare and do, 
And arrayed in every fight 
On the battle side of right 
With the knowledge that is victory and power," — 

" the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus 
Christ whom He has sent " ; for this is life eternal. 



THE SERVICE AT BARNES HALL. II7 

On Sunday evening, at Barnes Hall, was held the com- 
memoratory service of the Cornell University Christian Asso- 
ciation. All its exercises took place as announced ; and with 
this service the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the opening of Cornell University was at an end. 



VIEWS OF 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

IN ITS 
FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN i5 



THE FOUNDER AND THE ORIGINAL FACULTY 



These photographs of the Founder and the original Facultj' 
of Cornell University were taken (with the exception of those 
forming the topmost row in the picture) by Purdy and Frear 
at Ithaca, in the first year of the University, and were thus 
grouped by them. The photograph of Professor Agassiz used 
in the group was from a painting, and is here replaced by one 
more satisfactorj'. 

The five portraits in the upper row of the present picture 
were for various reasons lacking to the group, and are now sup- 
plied from other contemporary photographs. With this addi- 
tion the roll of the resident Faculty is complete ; and, of the 
non-residents, Agassiz, Curtis, Dwight, Gould, and Lowell 
are here. 

The numbers of the following key correspond to those of 
the plate : 

I. Ezra Cornell. 2. Andrew D. White. 

3. Theodore W. Dwight. 16. Homer B. Sprague. 

4. WiLLARD FiSKE. 1 7. ZiBA H. POTTER. 

5. Evan W. Evans. i8. John L. Morris. 

6. William C. Cleveland. 19. William D. Wilson. 

7. Burt G. Wilder. 20. William C. Russel. 

8. Joseph H. Whittlesey. 21. Goldwin Smith. 

9. Lewis Spaulding. 22. James Russell Lowell. 
ID. James Law. 23. George William Curtis. 

11. Eli W. Blake. 24. James M. Crafts. 

12. Chas. Fred Hartt. 25. T. Frederick Crane. 

13. Louis Agassiz. 26. Albert N. Prentiss. 

14. George C. Caldwell. 27. Albert S. Wheeler. 

15. James Morgan Hart. 28. John Stanton Gould. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1868 



THE UNIVERSITY FROM THE VALLEY 



The view is from the cupola of the CUnton House, look- 
ing toward East Hill. On the crest of the hill, at the left-hand 
upper corner of the picture, maj' be seen Morrill Hall (then 
called "South University"), the one building completed. Just 
to the right of it the temporary shelter of the chime is nearly 
hidden by the trees. Near the right-hand upper corner appears 
Cascadilla Place, built for a watercure establishment, but 
given to the university at its opening and of the utmost ser- 
vice in its early years. To the right of this, in the background, 
the "Giles Place" (now Cascadilla Cottage, the residence of 
Professor Corson). On the left of the picture, beyond Casca- 
dilla gorge, the village burying-ground is seen, and, crossing 
it, the footpath, then as ever since the favorite short-cut to 
the Campus. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1868 



THE ENTRANCE TO THE CAMPUS 
SOUTH UNIVERSITY BUILDING (MORRII.L HALL) 



The first bridge over Cascadilla gorge, at the entrance to 
the Campus. It was a wtjoden structure, crossing at the same 
point as the present bridge, but much nearer the stream. 



"South University" (now Morrill Hall), as seen from the 
centre of the Campus, looking southwest. The shed-like 
structure projecting from its northern end is the power-hoaise 
sheltering the engine which ran the University printing-press. 
At the left of the picture appears the temporary tower for the 
chime. In the foreground, just at the right of the embank- 
ment, maj' be seen a spring much used by the students. The 
white object across the road from Morrill Hall is a trough for 
the watering of horses. 




""^ 




CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1872 



THE CAMPUS, LOOKING NORTH 



This view is from near the site of the present Boardraan 
Hall (the school of law). It was taken in early May of 1872, 
and was distributed by the Cornell Era as a gift to its sub- 
scribers. Each of the twelve negatives taken had a differ- 
ent group of students in the foreground. Merrill Hall (then 
"South University"), McGraw Hall, and White Hall (then 
"North University") appear at the left, Sibley College in the 
background, and at the right the temporary wooden building 
used as a chemical laboratory and familiarly known for years 
as the "Old Lab." Sundry farm buildings of the University 
mav be seen behind. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1878 



THE CAMPUS, LOOKING NORTH 
THE CAMPUS, LOOKING SOUTHWEST 



These two views, taken in the summer of 1878 from Sage 
College, the one looking north, the other southwest, show all 
the buildings of the Campus proper except Sage College itself. 

In the upper view appear in the foreground Sage Chapel 
and the house of Professor Babcock ; at the left, behind, Mor- 
rill (South University), McGraw, and White (North Univer- 
sity), with the lake in the distance ; in the centre, half-hidden 
by the trees, Sibley College ; and, at the right, the Old Lab- 
oratory with the farm buildings in the background. 

In the lower view are seen the residences of Professors 
Crane, Shackford, and Morris, and, still further to the left, the 
barn-like old Gymnasium, owned by the students. Beyond 
may be dimly made out Ithaca in its valley with the surround- 
ing; hills. 



CORNEIvL UNIVERSITY IN 1887 



THE CAMPUS, LOOKING NORTH 



Again a view from Sage College. In addition to the older 
buildings, a new physical laboratory (now Franklin Hall) looms 
up at the northwest corner of the Campus, in the angle be- 
tween White and Sibley ; and over the top of the "Old Lab" 
(become the Civil Engineering Building) are visible the roofs 
and tall chimne}' of the additions to Sibley- College. The 
strange mast seen over the western gable of Sage Chapel is the 
pole of the University's weather signal station. Beyond it, on 
thebrowof the hill, overlooking the lake, appears the McGraw- 
Fiske mansion. In the immediate foreground, at the left, may 
be seen preparations for the erection of Barnes Hall. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1893 



THE CAMPUS, LOOKING NORTH 



The view is again from Sage College, but with striking 
changes. Be}'ond Sage Chapel, at the left, the new University 
Library, with its bell-tower ; at the right, the new law build- 
ing (Boardman Hall). In the background, over the roofs of 
McGraw and at its left is seen the chemical laboratory (Morse 
Hall). Sibley College, in the centre, has doubled its original 
size, and is flanked by lesser buildings, its workshops. The 
old laboratory has disappeared, and looking past its site one 
sees instead the new college of Architecture and Civil Engineer- 
ing (Lincoln Hall). 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 189^ 



THE CAMPUS, LOOKING SOUTH 



Looking south from Sage Chapel. At the left. Sage Col- 
lege, the residence of the women of the University. In the 
foreground, Barnes Hall, the home of the Universit}' Christian 
Association. At the right, further back, the combined Gym- 
nasium and Armory, flying its flag. Over the roofs of Barnes 
Hall and Sage College may be seen the homes of professors. 
The tall building in the distance, at the left of the Armor}-, is 
that of the Cascadilla School. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1893 



SAGE COLLEGE 

BARNES HALL 

THE ARMORY (THE GYMNASIUM) 



Sao;e College, from the southwest. 



Barnes Hall, from the northwest. Sage College and the 
Armory in the background. 



The Armory (the Gj'mnasium) from the northwest. 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY IN 1893 



THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 



The University Library-, from the Campus, looking south- 
west. At the left, its bell-tower for the chime and clock. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



(From the Minutes of the Board of Trustees, April 24, 1894.) 

The President of the University presented a 
final proof of the publication reporting the Proceed- 
ings and Addresses at the Quarter-Century Celebra- 
tion, and offered the following resolutions, which 
were unanimously adopted : 

Resolved^ That the cordial thanks of the Board 
be, and the same are hereby, tendered to Professor 
George L. Burr for the labor, care, and taste with 
which, in fulfillment of the editorial task laid upon 
him by the Board, he has accomplished the prepara- 
tion and illustration of the volume containing the 
Proceedings and Addresses at the Twenty-Fifth 
Anniversary of the Opening of Cornell University. 

Further Resolved^ That Professor Burr be 
directed to publish this minute as a postscript to 
the volume. 



029 923 185 9 



